


how we tesselate

by orphean



Category: DC Extended Universe, Justice League (2017), Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Multi, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:53:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26019076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphean/pseuds/orphean
Summary: Oh, Clark thought, and the realisation was both unexpected and unwelcome. Clark’s first thought, all id, was:Unfair. He wasn’t quite sure for whom it was unfair. Was he jealous of Bruce? It wasn’t that he had never noticed that Diana was beautiful. But she was beautiful like great whites were frightening. Inevitably, impossibly. Or (and this thought coalesced like molasses from a spoon) was he jealous of Diana? Bruce was –Brucewas. Clark didn’t know how to finish that statement. Every time he thought about Bruce for too long, too hard, he could feel him in his heart, a deep reverberation that was unlike anything he was used to. He tried not to think about Bruce too often.
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Diana (Wonder Woman)/Bruce Wayne, Diana (Wonder Woman)/Clark Kent, Diana (Wonder Woman)/Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 25
Kudos: 147





	how we tesselate

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to write a proper polyamory fic, but then Superbat feelings wouldn’t leave me alone, so.
> 
> I decided against tagging all of the different sex going on in this fic because, uh, there’s a lot. The one **content warning** I want to flag is that there is one sex scene with one character who’s been lightly whammied with some sex pollen. It’s pretty mild, but I’d rather mention it now than have it be a nasty surprise for anyone. title snagged from Maxïmo Park’s _Your Urge_.
> 
> enjoy!

Once Clark realised, he couldn’t understand how he hadn’t figured it out sooner. What made him figure it out wasn’t anything big, just the smallest brush of Diana’s fingers over Bruce’s shoulder.

They had been in the Cave, and the others had left. Clark didn’t like to be the first to leave, didn’t like to feel like he was trying to hide. Months had passed since he came back, but he still felt wary about being around Bruce. He knew he could trust him. He knew, despite the cautionary voice that sounded too much like his father, that Bruce wouldn’t hurt him again – or that if he would, it’d be warranted.

Bruce had been talking about money – the legal loopholes required to fund the League while protecting Batman’s identity – when Diana, standing behind him, had reached out and run her fingers along his shoulder, from the nape of his neck and down his arm, her hand coming to rest in a comfortable grip on his bicep. Bruce kept talking, the uptick in his heartbeat barely perceptible.

 _Oh_ , Clark thought, and the realisation was both unexpected and unwelcome. Clark’s first thought, all id, was: _Unfair_. He wasn’t quite sure for whom it was unfair. Was he jealous of Bruce? It wasn’t that he had never noticed that Diana was beautiful. But she was beautiful like great whites were frightening. Inevitably, impossibly. Or (and this thought coalesced like molasses from a spoon) was he jealous of Diana? Bruce was –

Bruce _was._ Clark didn’t know how to finish that statement. Every time he thought about Bruce for too long, too hard, he could feel him in his heart, a deep reverberation that was unlike anything he was used to. He tried not to think about Bruce too often. (He didn’t always succeed, but the shame that followed his late-night orgasms were a good reminder why he should _keep trying_.)

‘I need to be going,’ Diana said as she brushed her fingers over his suit jacket, ‘are you heading out tonight?’

‘Yes.’ Bruce barely shifted, his head half-cocked to show that he was paying attention to her.

‘I know you won’t, but please be safe.’ Her fingers brushed over his bespoke suit again, fingertips stroking his neck for a second before pulling back. ‘You’ll be fighting with valuable equipment.’

‘Equipment can be replaced.’

‘I’m talking about you, stupid.’ The insult was softly spoken, a wily grin on Diana’s face. Just barely, a matching twist of Bruce’s mouth.

(All at once, Clark imagined what it must be like. Bruce on his knees between Diana’s legs; his hands gripping her thighs, his hands spread over her stomach; his face dipped and his tongue carefully moving; his mouth slick with her. Diana: laughing; smiling; her hair splayed across Bruce’s pillows; her body arched on Bruce’s sheets, sheets soft enough that just the touch felt like a caress. Bruce, inside her, focused on the small – loud? – sounds he could coax out of her. His jaw set, his brow furrowed in concentration. Diana would laugh, Diana would smile, but Clark couldn’t imagine that Bruce ever would. If he didn’t smile after saving the damn world, he wouldn’t smile during sex.)

Diana grabbed Clark’s arm before she left.

‘You too. Be safe.’

Clark shifted from one foot to another until he knew that Diana was really gone. If Bruce minded him staying, he didn’t say anything. He had returned to the files open on his monitors, to all appearances unaware that Clark hadn’t yet left.

‘So…’ Clark finally said, once the silence had stretched long enough that something needed to be said. ‘You and Diana?’

‘It’s not what you think,’ Bruce replied brusquely, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

‘The two of you aren’t–’ Clark searched for the right term. _Together?_ No, that implied a vulnerability that he couldn’t imagine Bruce would allow himself. _Involved?_ Steeped in euphemism and barely different from “Together”, anyway. _Fucking?_ Far too fucking crass.

‘Sleeping together?’ Bruce finished the sentence when Clark trailed off, one eyebrow raised in his direction.

‘Yeah.’

‘We are.’ Somehow, this open confession wrongfooted Clark. (Bruce wrongfooted Clark every time he surprised him. Would Clark ever learn to pin him down?) ‘It’s not a relationship.’

‘Oh. Okay.’ His answer was flat and unsatisfying. What was Clark supposed to say? _I’m happy for you_? He wasn’t sure he _was_ happy for them.

‘Do you disapprove?’ Bruce asked the question easily, laissez-faire, but Clark could hear the tension in Bruce’s body.

‘No, not at all. Good for you. I’m sorry, that’s – that’s probably inappropriate to say.’

Bruce did turn at this, a twenty-five degree swivel of his chair, his head at an angle. There wasn’t a smile on his face, but something like it – the rough outlines of a smirk, perhaps.

‘Yes,’ He agreed, his voice suddenly velvet and there was something in his eyes, something that didn’t _quite_ scare Clark. ‘Good for me.’ He paused, his tongue barely darting out to wet his lips. ‘Good for her.’

‘Right.’ Clark swallowed and fought the blush he could feel burning on his face. ‘I should – um – I should go. Be safe tonight.’

Bruce didn’t say anything in response, so Superman flew off. He didn’t realise until later that he was repeating Diana’s words.

* * *

It took weeks, but Clark got over it. Well. He did his best.

Every time the Justice League was together, he thought of it. He watched the way Bruce just slightly lowered his head when Diana advised him, like a king listening to his beloved advisor. It wasn’t that Bruce spent more attention on her than on anyone else. Perhaps it was their symmetry that stayed with Clark; their matching deep eyes, their dark hair, their ability to bend the world into a shape of their choosing. Perhaps it was just that Bruce Wayne had a reputation.

He wondered. Unbidden and unwelcome, he found himself thinking about them. Did they ever wear their uniforms? Maybe Bruce bent his “no metas in Gotham” rule for her, and maybe they ended up on some abandoned rooftop, fucking against a chimney. Wonder Woman, yielding her inhuman power to Batman, letting him imagine she was another notch on his bedpost. Or, maybe. Batman, yielding his control. Her thighs straddling him, her hand pressed against his chest. Clark wondered: would he wear his cowl? He didn’t think Diana would like it. He didn’t think Bruce would take it off. Not in public. Surely, not in public.

(He wondered if they got off on the personas. He wondered if they played with it.)

There were times, when he was tired and spent and just wanting to come, that he let his thoughts drift. Moments where he let himself wonder not what Bruce looked like when Diana made him come, but: what he would look like if _Clark_ made him come; what he would taste like if Clark kissed him; what he would feel like, muscles shifting under Clark’s fingers. He wondered, also: would Diana sigh in contentment if he kissed her; would Diana prefer to yield or rather bring Clark to a heel; would Diana love or loathe that he was the only man stronger than her?

So, maybe he didn’t get over it. Maybe he felt a niggling sense of jealousy whenever he saw them. Nothing they did deserved this feeling of envy. Bruce looked at Clark, deferred to Clark, just as much as he deferred to Diana. Diana smiled at him – more than she smiled at Bruce. He wondered if he ought to talk to her, tell her that he knew.

He didn’t do anything. Maybe Superman was a hero, but Clark Kent was a coward.

* * *

The world, like so often, forced his hand.

For the first time in the League’s existence, Batman had called for backup. Superman was the first on the scene, followed in the next thirty minutes by Wonder Woman. The rest of the league (distorted transmissions reported) were entangled in their own messes. Diana laughed, crouching in a warrior’s pose and twirling her sword, ready for the forces approaching.

They were tree creatures, wizened with discoloured foliage. Clark’s heat vision dealt with much of the threat; Diana’s sword dealt with the rest. As they fought the troops, Batman moved through and approached the leader. Clark determined that they had cleared enough of the weeds to move ahead. He floated next to Bruce, who was facing down the ringmaster of the crew, a red-haired woman with skin the green of summer fields. She was sitting in a giant flower, the petals shifted to make an oversized throne.

‘Will you get these on her?’ Bruce had a pair of heavy cuffs, a solid steel bar keeping the cuffs connected, dangling from his fingers. Clark grabbed them.

‘I’m on it.’

Even as he lifted from the ground, the woman raised a finger in warning, and a thick green mist descended upon them.

‘Hold your breath!’

Clark wanted to speak, wanted to say that he didn’t _need_ to breathe, but he had never heard Bruce sound so frenetic. When the green mist descended on them, Clark wondered if it was airborne Kryptonite, but the green landed on him like pollen. He pushed through the haze and found her wrists, the steel clicking into place with a satisfying metallic sound. He didn’t breathe.

Once she was on the ground again – the rose withered and rotting where Clark had pulled her from it – he let go of her and approached Batman. He was coughing, his pulse high and erratic. Diana was there, staying several feet away from him.

‘I need to get back to the Cave,’ he said, his jaw working through the words like taffy. ‘Can you – can you get Ivy back to Arkham?’

‘Go.’ Diana touched his forearm, the barest touch, and Bruce growled at her. ‘I’ll take care of it.’

Batman was gone in a moment, his cape a sharp _swish_ and the Batmobile leaving a stench of burnt rubber in its tracks. Diana was gone, too, the ringleader – Ivy? – gone with her.

Clark hovered for a moment, surveying the wood sprawled across the street, before he decided to go to the cave.

Bruce hadn’t said he _couldn’t_ come.

He dipped into the Gotham harbour, traveling by water. He could feel the pollen stuck on his face and suit fall off. He felt clean.

When he touched down on the always-slightly-damp floor, Bruce turned with a suddenness that was unfamiliar, his eyes unfocused.

‘What are you doing here?’ There was something in his voice that was off, like congealed oatmeal when he was usually like a sharp whisky.

‘Are you okay?’

Bruce’s vitals were all over the place: he was still but his heart was pounding; the Cave was bright but his pupils were blown; his very _voice_ was different.

‘You should go.’ Bruce worked his jaw, the creak of his molars sharp in Clark’s ears. ‘Did Diana deal with her?’

‘The green woman?’ Clark asked. ‘Yeah, she’s taking her to the police. Or Arkham, I guess. Who is she?’

‘She–’ and Clark realised that Bruce was sweating, beads of perspiration running down his forehead, curling around his eyebrow and tracing down his face (and Clark wondered: what did that taste like?), ‘She’s Pamela Isley. She’s a molecular biologist and her focus –’ another pause, one of Bruce’s hands running over his forehead, the other squeezed his knee, ‘her focus is on the biology of plants.’

‘The biology of plants?’ Clark echoed, not sure what Bruce was getting at.

It was at this point that Diana burst through the lake entrance, her hair in her eyes and drops of water on her skin.

‘Batman. Are you alright?’

‘No,’ Bruce said.

(It shouldn’t make Clark angry that Bruce would answer to Diana when he circumvented the same question from him.)

‘Are you–’ he continued, the question cut off with a groan.

‘Bruce, we need to get you upstairs.’ Diana was at his feet, her hands on his armrests, almost not touching him. ‘Did you take the antidote?’

‘She’s changed her formula. The antidote is not as effective.’ In (what Clark assumed was) a moment of weakness, Bruce dipped his forehead against Diana’s shoulder, and her fingers curled into his hair. ‘Clark, I–’

It was a strange image. Batman, cowl off, cradled against Diana’s chest, his eyes burning through Clark. Somehow, he had never felt so wanted.

‘Her _specialty_ was how plant-based aphrodisiacs worked.’

All at once, Clark understood Bruce’s vitals, his wild eyes, Diana’s worry.

‘Let’s get you upstairs,’ Diana said again, a cautious smile on her face.

(All at once, Clark understood what Diana meant about getting Bruce _upstairs_.)

‘Clark.’ Bruce was barely standing, propped up by Diana’s arm around his waist. His eyes, when they met Clark, were dark and equally intoxicating and intoxicated. ‘Do you want to watch?’

Diana said nothing as she held Bruce up, her grip keeping him upright even as he sagged against her, as he started to groan. (Clark found himself thinking: Diana wasn’t an impartial party; Bruce was incapacitated; someone should keep an eye on him, keep an eye on his interests.) She smiled at Clark and – maybe it wasn’t encouraging him to come. But it sure as hell looked like she wouldn’t mind.

‘Yes.’

* * *

_Yes_ wasn’t the wrong answer.

 _Yes_ was the answer that allowed Clark to watch Diana of Themyscira fuck the most fascinating man he had ever met.

Maybe it was awkward for just a moment, when Diana asked him to go to Bruce’s bedroom. When she said that there was an armchair in the corner, that he could sit there, and that they’d be right up. Maybe it had been a little sudden when they had arrived, when Diana had led him in and Bruce had made dissatisfied sounds as she kicked the door shut. Bruce, who had leapt at Diana, pushing their bodies closer with a force he would never expect from a human. Then, Diana’s hand, thumb and forefinger stretched, over Bruce’s oesophagus and his back against the door.

‘ _Behave.’_ She smiled at him, her thigh pressed between his, the barest push of pressure. Bruce moaned, his eyes unfocused and satisfied. Clark, his fists curled at his sides, could see how Diana stroked the skin of his jaw, concerned etched in the corners of her eyes. ‘Are you still with me?’

‘Mm.’ The confidence in Bruce’s voice was at odds with the lack of focus with which he moved his body, his gaze constantly shifting across Diana’s face. (It was like Clark didn’t exist.) Diana must have stripped him off his uniform in the cave, because he was wearing his undersuit, the shift of his muscles clear under the thin fabric. ‘Fuck me.’

Diana’s gaze flicked – Bruce’s lips, his mouth, Clark’s wide-eyed expression, Bruce again. Then she smiled.

Clark couldn’t move, even as every sensible inch of his body was yelling at him to go. He couldn’t go _now_.

Not when: Diana leading Bruce to the bed, Bruce tripping over his feet walking and getting undressed all at once; Diana kissing him, his mouth and jaw and neck and chest and and and; Bruce covering his eyes with his arm, his free fingers barely pushing at Diana’s hair, his legs sprawled lazily across the bed.

Not when: Clark watching dumbly as Diana stripped, Bruce’s eyes just as wide and admiring; Diana touching Bruce’s face and then reaching across him to the bedside drawer; Diana adjusting the straps of her harness, then back between his legs; Diana’s slick fingers moving carefully inside Bruce as he swore and told her to hurry up; Diana, finally satisfied with her preparations, pressing the strap-on inside, inch by inch.

Not when: Bruce shivering and begging against her rhythm, fists bunched in the sheets; Bruce shifting and suddenly seeming to realise that Clark was there; Bruce smiling, really smiling, and lifting a hand with an uncertain focus; Bruce licking his lips and saying:

‘Come here.’

Diana turned her head, her eyes dark and fixed on Clark. She smiled, as though to apologise for Bruce’s request. _Boys, right?_

‘No,’ Clark said, crossing his legs. He didn’t know if it was worth pretending he was unaffected by this, but the idea of acknowledging what the sight of Bruce Wayne being fucked did to him was utterly humiliating. The idea of _joining_ them in that bed, in that situation, turned his stomach in a not entirely uncomfortable way. But it wouldn’t be right to accept.

Bruce almost looked hurt by the rejection.

Then Diana shifted her hips and Bruce swore, his voice thick with arousal. Diana touched his face and he leaned into her touch, whimpering and keening for her. Clark bit down on his hand as he watched them. It was a dance: Diana moving with a focus that reminded Clark of waves crashing across the shore; Bruce watching her through heavy eyelashes, one hand brushing over her body – across the expanse of her stomach, the curve of her breast, the peak of her nipple – the other stroking his erection. Diana smiled brightly at him, beads of sweat trickling down her forehead. Bruce’s returning smile was lazy, his eyes drifting shut. He had wrapped a leg around her waist, keeping her close. The grip on his cock had grown rough and fast.

‘I want you to come,’ Diana said, her voice low and fond. Her pitch did something to Clark, a new kind of humming in the depths of his stomach. It was an order. It was an order Clark found himself wanting to obey.

Bruce obeyed.

He came with one fist wrapped around himself, the other squeezing Diana’s wrist as though it was the one thing keeping him grounded.

‘Good?’ Diana asked, her fingers caressing his jaw.

‘Very.’

Bruce’s voice was all edges. He let go of her wrist, and Clark was shocked at the dark bruise on her wrist. It would fade soon, he knew, but it had to hurt. Diana just smiled, still stroking Bruce’s face, his hairline, her thumb tracing the outline of his ear. She eased back, pulling out, and undid the clasps of her harness. Bruce didn’t complain when she used his undershirt to clean his chest and hand, separating each finger to get it clean. She kissed each of his fingertips when she was done, and Clark almost thought Bruce smiled again.

‘Feeling better?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’ Bruce reached up, letting his fingers – brush her cheek, her hair, her breast, her hip – come to a rest on her thigh. ‘I’ll sleep the rest of it off.’

‘Do you want me to stay?’

Bruce shook his head.

‘No. Should sleep alone.’

He only glanced over at Clark for a moment, his head lolling to one side, but his gaze was unfocused and satisfied, so unlike how he usually looked at him. He looked pleased. Clark liked that expression on him.

‘I’ll bring you a glass of water before I leave.’

She brushed the hair out of his face and planted a single kiss in his temple. Bruce made a sound of thanks. Diana slid off the bed, each of her movements elegant and precise, and she turned to Clark.

‘I’ll see you out.’

Diana walked through the lakehouse with practised ease, never bumping into any of the stylish but sharp-edged pieces of furniture that were scattered throughout the house. Clark followed in her path, uncertain if he should look at her. She was still nude, all inviting hips and slender waist, two slight indentations in her lower back. Dimples of Venus, Clark remembered it was called. It was an appropriate name. He found his eyes drifting back to her every time he tried to look away. After what she – what _they_ – had let him watch, then, surely, wanting to look was alright?

‘I–’ Clark began, before he realised he didn’t know how to finish the sentence. He could say: _I’m sorry I watched_ . He could say: _I’m grateful you let me watch_ . He could say: _I am worried that Bruce will hate me even more now_ . He could say: _I have never been so jealous of anyone, and I don’t know of whom._ He could say: _I know you didn’t come; do you want me to make you come?_

He just stood in the hallway, her fingers on the door handle, saying nothing. When the silence stretched, Diana smiled at him, all warmth and love.

‘Thank you for staying.’ She said. ‘Please be safe.’

‘Of course,’ he promised.

* * *

After the next League meeting, Bruce brushed his fingers over his arm and asked him to stay for a moment.

‘What’s up?’ Clark asked. He had never been very good at playing dumb.

‘Nothing important.’

Bruce nodded at Diana, who had been hovering by the table where they held their meetings. She smiled at them – a quick grin at Bruce, a longer, brighter, smile at Clark – and left. Bruce stayed silent for several minutes, moving through the cave, doing a terrible impression of a man at ease.

Finally, Clark cleared his throat.

‘I should apologise.’ Bruce said, turning. He was by his computer, back-lit by the half-dozen monitors.

‘What do you want to apologise for?’

Part of Clark wanted to hide, to run away from this conversation. But, hands deep in his pockets, he moved closer. He leaned against the table opposite Bruce, careful not to disturb any of the gadgets sprawled across its surface.

‘I should have briefed you on the situation,’ Bruce said, arms crossed over his chest, eyes locked on Clark, ‘Before I asked for back-up. I should have told you about the risks.’

‘The risks?’

‘I should have told you what Poison Ivy was capable of.’ A beat. ‘It was arrogant to assume that you were immune; to assume that you would keep your breath for long enough. It was arrogant to assume you would be unaffected, even if you were.’ A rare moment of hesitation, and Bruce’s gaze darted away for a second before returning. ‘Diana tells me you _were_ unaffected.’

‘Yes. I didn’t breathe any of that stuff in.’ Clark knew this for a fact. He had even gone to the ship and asked for a full physiological exam. Everything had come back clean.

‘Then–’ Bruce drummed his fingers against his computer, a quick _rat-tat-tat_ , ‘the other thing I should apologise for. I shouldn’t have asked you to watch. I shouldn’t have asked you to join. It was – presumptuous.’

‘Me, um, me saying no. It wasn’t – wasn’t personal.’ There was an old receipt in Clark’s pocket. He pulled it out, aligning the corners and folding the paper into increasingly small rectangles. Doing something with his hands made the conversation slightly less horrifying. ‘I assume that you and Diana had – that this was something you had discussed. And you had… contingencies.’

A wan grin flickered across Bruce’s face.

‘Aren’t you a gentleman, worrying about my virtue?’ When Clark didn’t say anything, he continued. ‘Yes, she was aware. It was a contingency we’d discussed. Whatever’ – and he waved a hand as he searched for the word he was looking for, a gesture that didn’t gel with how matter-of-factly he was speaking – ‘qualms you may have, consent was never an issue. Not on my end. On your–’

‘Shut up.’ Clark pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He couldn’t hear Bruce talk like this, like _Clark_ was somehow the wronged party. He inhaled a breath he didn’t need and forced the words out. ‘I wouldn’t have said yes if I didn’t want to. I didn’t – I didn’t follow you because I felt I _had_ to. I wanted to. And in another situation – if you hadn’t been drugged – I would have said yes to your other question, too.’ 

‘Oh,’ said Bruce Wayne. ‘Maybe we should talk about that sometime.’

‘Yeah,’ Clark agreed, ‘maybe we should.’

* * *

The lake was still but for a fleet of water striders skittering across the surface. It wasn’t fully dark yet, but Clark could see the glowing miasma of Gotham’s light pollution behind the trees on the opposite shore. He was pinned up against the glass wall of the lakehouse, a forearm pressed down on his shoulder blades to keep him in place, Bruce’s free hand working open the fly of his jeans.

The living room was dark and Clark wished he could see Bruce.

This was the first time.

After weeks of walking in circles around each other, neither of them certain how to take the next step, neither of them wanting to be the one to take it. But it was easy in the end. Clark had rung the doorbell, hands in pocket, and smiled at Bruce. Neither of them had said a word.

‘Bruce Bruce _fuck_ –’ Clark whimpered and he couldn’t even find it within himself to be embarrassed for how needy he sounded, not now, not when Bruce had him in hand and was stroking him with firm determination. ‘Bruce I wanna see you let me see you.’

Bruce stilled and Clark pushed back (just a little little little) in protest.

‘Lights, 80%.’

The room brightened. (Clark thought, the idea half-formed, that it was strange that he would have his home wired for voice control. It seemed like something that could be hacked, something that could go wrong. But if Clark had that thought, Bruce must have had it, too. And he must have decided the benefits outweighed the risks.)

Bruce shifted, moving the hand pressed on Clark’s shoulder up his neck, into his hair. Tugging slightly, baring his throat. He rolled his hips against Clark, the press of his erection heavy through his slacks. In the reflection of the skylights on the glass, Clark could see Bruce’s face. His eyes dark and focused, his teeth bared in a leonine grin.

‘Fuck, Clark. I’ve barely touched you and you’re already a mess for me.’

The words were a breath against Clark’s ear. Clark wanted to protest, but he could see his reflection. He could see how blown his eyes were, the slackness of his jaw, the sounds he made without meaning to. Bruce stroked him with purpose. Clark clenched his fists against the wall – not sure if he’d be able to make it through without shattering the glass – and ground his teeth down. He wanted to last; he didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of Bruce by coming from a three-minute handjob.

But: the way they were both still fully dressed, Clark’s jeans only moved just enough out of the way; the way Bruce pressed his erection against Clark’s ass; the way he twisted his wrist with such care, getting him off with such precision; the way Bruce looked at him like he was a god-damned prize. It was so much.

‘Is this good for you? Tell me, Clark, is this what you want? Do you want me? God, do you know what it’s like to see you like this?’

Clark’s attempted answers were reduced to a mess of soft consonants when Bruce kissed his throat, his eyes still trained on their shared reflection. Between Bruce’s warm mouth against his skin, his murmured commentary, and his unyielding grip on his cock, Clark wasn’t going to last. Bruce started moving faster, rougher. Clark pushed himself closer to Bruce, and Bruce exhaled a noise of satisfaction.

That he didn’t shatter the wall was a miracle. As it was, the cum splattered against the glass and Clark sagged against it, standing only because Bruce was still pressed close. After a few seconds where they just breathed together, his hand loosely wrapped around his half-hard dick, Bruce redid his jeans with suspicious speed and stepped back.

‘How’s that?’ Bruce sounded perfectly calm, the words soaked with self-satisfied disinterest. But Clark could smell him, his senses lighting up like the night sky on Fourth of July. His erection straining his slacks. His eyes darker than he had ever seen them.

Clark worked his mouth, trying to find the words.

‘ _Fuck_.’ he finally managed.

‘Language, kid.’ Bruce laughed, the sound smug and settling immediately in Clark’s stomach. ‘I’ll take it as a compliment.’

‘We should, um, we should probably clean that up.’

Clark gestured at the cum sliding down the glass wall. Bruce studied it for a moment, considering, before he pulled out his pocket square and held it out to Clark.

‘If you want to. Window cleaner’s coming tomorrow.’

His tone was light, carefree. Like bodily fluids in unexpected places was something Wayne-employed cleaners were used to. Clark wiped down the window, folding the silk on itself and, realising he had no idea what to do with it, put it in his pocket. Bruce was watching him from the wingback chair he had chosen to sprawl in, legs spread.

‘Are you coming over here?’

Clark walked the few steps to the chair, placing himself in the V of Bruce’s legs. He wasn’t sure where to go from here. (Well. He _knew_. But he couldn’t imagine how he’d get from where he was to where he was – really really – pretty sure Bruce wanted him.)

‘Here I am.’

‘There you are.’ Bruce looked at him, cat with the cream. ‘You’re blushing.’

‘I’m–’ Clark meant to protest, but he touched his cheek and yes, they were far too warm, even for him. So, instead of lying: ‘Yes.’

‘It’s very pretty.’ He licked his lips, looking Clark up and down. (Clark bit his tongue: he wanted to protest, say that he wasn’t _pretty_ , that he didn’t want Bruce to equate him with all his pretty girls.) ‘You’ve never done this, have you?’

‘I’m not a _virgin_.’

Maybe he was too defensive, too fiery in his objection. Bruce laughed.

‘No, no, of course not.’ He reached out with a hand, and before Clark knew it, he had it wrapped around one of his knees, pulling him into his lap. It was luck more than anything else that allowed Clark to fall with his knees on either side of Bruce’s hips and not crush him in the drop. ‘But you’re virginal, aren’t you? Superman has always been incredibly – pure. Not like the rest of us.’

‘I think that’s an exaggeration.’ Clark stumbled over the words when Bruce took his hand, turning it over and kissing his palm, each kiss a quiet benediction. ‘I don’t think I’m better than anyone else.’

‘I wasn’t talking about _better_ .’ A kiss for each fingertip, each knuckle, pushing back Clark’s cuff to kiss the inside of his wrist. Clark shivered. ‘I was talking about _purer_ . If I didn’t have evidence to the contrary, and if I wasn’t _me_ , I would think you were above something as base as sex.’

Bruce leaned back in the chair, head tilted, and Clark drank him in: all sharp angles and high cheekbones; the scratch of dark stubble and the kiss of grey hair at his temples; eyes unfathomable and eyebrows raised in question.

‘I don’t think there’s anything base about it.’

‘So you’re gonna suck my cock?’ The corner of Bruce’s lip twitched. ‘And there you are, blushing scarlet.’

‘You’re being difficult.’ Part of Clark wanted to hide, bury his face in Bruce’s shoulder until he apologised, until he decided to stop being such a _lot_.

‘No, I’m _easy_.’ He sneered. ‘That’s what your tabloid peers say, isn’t it?’

‘We haven’t kissed yet.’

‘I made you come already, so you don’t have to stand on ceremony.’

‘It was very nice, but I’d still like to kiss you.’

‘No one’s stopping you. You do have a mouth made for kissing.’ Bruce’s eyes flickered down to his mouth. He met his gaze again and winked. ‘Among other things.’

‘I– okay.’

It was nice, the way Bruce smiled into the kiss. Kissing Bruce was different from how Clark had imagined. He had thought it’d be rough and hard, fighting for release, not closeness, but Bruce kissed with an exhibitionistic coyness, teasing and slow. He seemed comfortable with Clark in his lap, pulling him closer and tracing his fingers over his arms, shoulders, back, the tops of his thighs. Clark wasn’t sure what to touch so he touched what he could – fingers flitting over his chest, his arms, his face. Bruce’s hair was soft and Clark took a – perverse? after what Bruce had said, he almost wanted it to be perverse – pleasure in running his hands through it until Bruce pulled back.

‘Is that a Kryptonian thing?’

‘What?’

Bruce answered by moving a hand, pressing his heel of his palm against Clark’s erection.

‘Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s an, um, yes, that’s a Kryptonian thing. Sorry.’

‘Sorry? No, _fun_.’ His smile was leonine, sharp teeth and hunger. ‘But speaking of _things_. As much as I enjoy having you in my lap and you cutting off my circulation – I mean, Jesus, you’re heavy – I was wondering…’

‘Um, okay.’ Clark said, well aware that he was still firmly planted in Bruce’s lap.

‘He said, not moving.’ Bruce craned his head, thumb rubbing across his thigh. ‘You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.’

‘No, I want to. I just–‘ and now Clark did bury his face in Bruce’s shoulder, his forehead against the divot of his collarbone, ‘I’m nervous.’

‘Baby, it’s not rocket science. But like I said: as thrilling as the idea of your mouth on me is, if you don’t–’

‘Stop.’ Clark had the fleeting thought that Bruce looked far too pleased to have Clark’s fingers pressed against his lips. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to, I just need you to promise that – I don’t know – that you won’t hate me if I am really bad.’ 

‘Hate you?’ Bruce repeated, tongue flitting out to touch his fingertips. ‘I think that’s past us, don’t you?’

‘I’d like to think so.’

‘That makes two of us.’

Clark brushed his fingers across Bruce’s face, the sharp brow and the jut of his jaw. Bruce caught the hand, kissed the hand and moved it down, pressing it, palm down, against his belt buckle. He said nothing as Clark began to pull the end through the belt loops – and this was happening, _Jesus,_ it was actually happening – and worked it through the buckle. He shifted his weight and brought his other hand down. Getting a pair of very nice pants open without tearing them was easier with both hands. Bruce watched him work, his eyes almost glassy, his mouth flushed and open. It was easier to watch Bruce’s face. It was less embarrassing. There was a part of Clark, that niggling self-loathing that decades of unconditional love had been unable to wear away, that was still expecting this to go badly, for Bruce to laugh at him, for this to be some kind of cruel prank.

Because the idea that Bruce would want him was so hard to believe.

(He had _Diana_ , for crying out loud.)

‘How you doing there, kid?’ 

‘I’m good. I’m good. I’m going to get down on the floor.’ Clark exhaled and glanced down at his hands, still awkwardly hovering above the unbuttoned slacks. In a poor mimicry of Bruce’s actions minutes before, he pushed his palm down.

Bruce’s shuddering smile was a revelation. Clark leaned down for another kiss and Bruce breathed into the kiss, mouth chasing and biting even as he pushed against his knees, immovable object and unstoppable force.

At long last, Clark was on the floor.

Another few moments, and Bruce lifted his hips so Clark could slide his slacks down.

It wasn’t that he had never seen another penis. But he had never seen another _erect_ one outside of porn, and Clark had always felt dirty and embarrassed about watching any, so he tried to never focus on details. Bruce was – beautiful was probably the wrong word, but he couldn’t help but admire its length, its curve, the slight twitch when he reached and let his fingers brush the length of it, like a debutante touching the perfect ball gown. His skin was so soft. Silken.

‘So, um. Should we talk about protection?’ Clark should probably have asked this question _before_ he was halfway to sucking him off.

Bruce groused.

‘If you want me to get up and get a condom I will, but I promise you, I’m clean. A _certain someone_ had some very strong feelings about me making this sure. I’ve been tested twice in the last six months, and everything came back clean, and I’ve not been fucking anyone else. And she would have told me if she was.’

‘Will you tell her about me?’

‘Only if you want me to. I’m going to tell her there was someone. I won’t say it’s you if you don’t want me to.’

‘You can tell her.’ Clark ran his fingers over the smooth length, feeling the rush of blood under the thin skin. It said something of Bruce’s self-control that he was just as hard now as before Clark had derailed them yet again. ‘And you don’t have to get up. I trust you.’

He shuffled closer, his knees up nudging the front legs of the chair, his finger and thumb wrapped around the base of Bruce’s cock. His fingers were in Clark’s hair, brushing lightly across his scalp.

Bruce had never looked at him this way before. If anything, if he _had_ , that would have been a cause for concern. It wasn’t that he looked scared, not that he looked concerned, but he looked… trepidatious. He was waiting, and he was _wanting_ . Knowing that it was _he_ who put that expression on his face made Clark’s cock twitch and gave him the final inch of courage he needed.

He tasted like nothing. Dragging his tongue up the shaft, it was – maybe the residue of soap, the barest hint of musk. But as he reached the tip, as he rolled his tongue over his head and adjusted his position so he could take him in mouth, he tasted precum, salty and almost sweet and completely new. Correction: he tasted like nothing he had ever experienced.

‘Fuck, Clark, your mouth. You’re so fucking hot.’ The clipped edges of his voice had fallen off. Bruce sounded untamed. ‘I mean that literally,’ – a beat – ‘and metaphorically, I guess.’

It wasn’t that Bruce’s cock was cold. But it was cooler than Clark’s lips, his mouth. He curled his fingers around the base of the cock for a better grip and bobbed his head, trying to figure out if he was doing this right. Bruce made a sound, a cut-off groan. Clark was determined to find out how to get him to make that sound again.

‘I’m going to put a hand on your neck. I’m not trying to keep you in place. I just want to feel you.’ Bruce’s palm on the nape of his neck was dry, a cold compress against the fire running through Clark’s veins. ‘God, Clark, you’re so good, you’re doing so fucking good.’

The words were nice to hear, because Clark really couldn’t tell. He had no idea if he was doing well. He hadn’t expected how _wet_ it’d be, spit trickling down his fist. He did his best, moving his head and hand in the same rhythm. But Bruce wasn’t complaining: he was praising Clark in a litany of cut-off sentences and murmured obscenities, the fingers in his hair curling and pushing down against his scalp, encouraging the rhythm.

‘Clark, Clark, that’s good, can you – yes, like that – God, please, harder – fuck, Clark, you’re so good and so perfect for me and your mouth – fuck – your mouth was made for this, was made for me, fuck, you don’t how long I – _Christ_ how do you want me to come do you want me to fuck fuck _fuck–_ ’

Bruce knew better than to think he _could_ hold Clark down, but he tightened the hand on his neck and Clark followed, taking him deeper and relaxing his jaw and – Bruce was coming with a bitten-off curse and twitching fingers. Clark stayed still through the aftershocks, feeling the cum on his tongue and in the back of his throat – sweet, salty, different from anything. He pulled back, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and wiping the slobber on his jeans. He leaned back on the floor, hands splayed behind him, and looked up at Bruce.

They stayed like that for – maybe a second, Clark couldn’t remember how time really worked, before Bruce was stumbling from the armchair and into his lap, knocking them both to the floor with the force of his kiss. He kissed deep, hungry, licking into Clark’s mouth as though he wanted to steal back his cum. His hands raked through his hair, across his face, down his arms, his chest. He reached down with one hand, palmed Clark’s belt buckle as he ground down his hips over his straining erection.

‘Can I?’ he asked.

Clark knew that words existed, that words _could_ be used, but he couldn’t remember any right then, not with Bruce’s burning black eyes, not with his breath skating across his mouth, not with his thumb pressing against his cock. He managed to nod.

For the second time in less than thirty minutes, Bruce undid his belt and jeans, tugging them down just enough. He knew what he was doing, that much was clear, wasting no time before he swallowed deep, moving with precise movements, each maneuver perfectly calibrated with no wasted effort. Clark propped himself up on his elbows so he could watch Bruce.

Bruce looked up at him, dark eyes behind heavy eyelids, mouth curled in a pleased sneer around his cock.

It didn’t take very long.

Afterwards, Bruce sat up and looked at Clark as he swallowed, as he ran his tongue over his teeth. He tucked Clark back into his underwear, pulling up his jeans again. He patted the bulge, a bizarre praise in the gesture. He tucked himself in as well, buttoning the top button of his slacks. Then he lay down on the floor, next to Clark.

The downlights in the ceiling shone brightly.

‘Lights, 55%.’

Clark had never heard Bruce sound quite like that, comfortable and lazy. He turned onto his side so he could look at Bruce. He decided to make an assumption.

‘Next time, maybe we’ll even take our clothes off.’

Bruce grinned a slanted smile at him, the skin around his eyes crinkling. Clark’s breath didn’t quite hitch.

‘Now _that’s_ an idea.’ 

So he wanted to do this again. Good. Good.

They stayed like that for a while, lying on Bruce’s beautiful Persian rug and just watching each other. When the silence had lasted long enough that Clark wondered if he should say something, Bruce rolled onto his knees and got up. Clark accepted the hand he offered.

‘I need to leave soon. But as your host I feel like I should offer you refreshments – or Alfred would disapprove. Water? A drink?’

‘I’m fine, thank you.’ Clark re-did his belt and put his hands in his back pockets. The atmosphere had shifted, and he was starting to feel embarrassed. ‘Thanks for offering, though.’

‘Any time.’ Bruce looked at him and maybe there was something funny in his eye, an expression Clark couldn’t quite read. He took a step closer and touched his collar, as though he was picking off a stray piece of lint. He didn’t move his hand. ‘I’ll see you around. At the next meeting, if not before.’

There was an invitation in what he wasn’t saying.

‘Yeah. You know where to find me.’

Clark dipped his head and felt Bruce’s fingers against his skin. Bruce brushed his thumb over the soft skin under his jaw before pulling back.

‘I’ll be here.’

‘Be safe tonight.’

‘Always.’

Bruce smiled and for a split-second, he looked sad. Clark wanted to kiss that sad smile away. He didn’t. He returned the smile and left.

* * *

Clark had never been in this situation before. He wasn’t sure how to deal with it. He had a sneaking feeling that talking about this was something they _should_ do, but the idea of making Bruce and Diana sit in a room with him and outline boundaries was mortifying. So he did nothing and followed Bruce’s lead.

Bruce: who would text him sometimes, asking if he was free; who, coming back from patrol and sloughing off the dirt of the city in his shower, would say his name like he was summoning a demon; who would touch his elbow at the end of the League meetings and make up a reason to ask him to stay behind.

Bruce, who also had Diana. There were times at the meetings – Diana on his left, Clark on his right – where Bruce would lean over to Diana and tell her that he had an old artifact he would like her to look at. Or he would say that Alfred missed her, and that she should stay for dinner. Or he would touch her waist, barely a touch, and she would linger.

(‘D’you reckon they’re sleeping together?’ Arthur asked Barry one day.

It was one of their training sessions, and Bruce was dodging Diana’s lasso with near-inhuman agility. He was wearing the suit but had kept the cowl off. Each time he kept out of range of her throws, his grin grew. The next time the lasso whipped out, he didn’t try to stay away, but reached out and grabbed it, wrong-footing Diana. She fell, and he had a knee pressed between her shoulder blades. It was the fourth time they had fought today, and the first time Bruce had won.

Both Clark and Victor were monitoring the fight from above, looking for overlooked opportunities and areas of improvement. Well, Victor was looking. Clark was trying to focus, but he kept thinking of the perfect teeth marks on Bruce’s collarbone, hidden beneath the suit. Clark hadn’t been the one to give him those.

‘Jesus, could you imagine? I don’t think so. I’d think Bruce has one of those weird moral codes that forbids him from dating people he works with. Jeopardise the mission blah blah.’ Arthur _hmm_ :ed in agreement in the brief pause before Barry started talking again. ‘And anyway, if he _was_ gonna go for someone on the team, Di’s not who I’d put money on.’

Arthur laughed and inclined his head, ceding the argument. Clark watched Bruce offer Diana a hand, and he felt a pang of _something_ at the crook of Bruce’s lip when he looked at her.)

It wasn’t that he was jealous. It really, really, wasn’t. He didn’t mind that they were sleeping together. They had been doing what they had been doing for much longer than whatever Clark and Bruce were doing. Clark didn’t have any kind of claim on Bruce. It was – he turned his feelings over in his mind, trying to straighten out the net between the three of them. Bruce was their fulcrum.

He should probably talk to Diana.

He should probably talk to Bruce.

* * *

Diana showed up at the _Daily Planet_ offices, her trench coat a dusty mauve and an impossibly stylish hat slanted on her head.

‘I was thinking we could do lunch. My treat.’ She smiled at him, and Clark’s heart jolted.

Of course he understood what Bruce saw in her. Maybe he was jealous of Bruce for figuring her out before he got around to it.

They ate at a Japanese restaurant that seemed like the kind of place Bruce would like – all brutal angles and glass, the dishes petite and the menu printed without prices. They shared a dozen plates and talked about work and nothing at all. When lunch was almost over, when all that was left of their feast was the sorbet in front of them, Diana pushed her hair behind her ear.

‘I want to talk about Bruce.’

‘I kind of figured.’

Clark didn’t know _what_ about Bruce she wanted to talk about, and he could hear how defensive he sounded. He didn’t like it.

Diana studied him, eyes crinkled and smiling, as she took a bite of her dessert.

‘He’s half in love with you, you know.’

Clark had expected – maybe he had thought she would stake a claim, put her foot down. Or perhaps she wanted to set some boundaries. He hadn’t expected her to say _that_.

‘I don’t – no, I don’t think so.’ The very _idea_ was incomprehensible. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘I don’t _think_ it,’ Diana said in the voice that bore no arguments, ‘it’s pretty obvious if you’re looking for it. I’m not sure if he’s aware of it, at least not clearly. But what he feels from you is very different from what he feels for me.’ She took another bite of her sorbet, considered, and reached over and swiped a spoonful from Clark’s serving. ‘I don’t mind it. It’s not that he doesn’t care for me. He does, and he’s kind, and he’s good. And I don’t mind sharing him. But I care for you, too. So I want you to know these things.’

‘Diana, I–’ Clark opened and closed his mouth a few times before he felt able to continue with any kind of sentence. ‘Thank you for talking to me.’

‘It’s not like our boy would do it.’

 _Ours_.

Clark liked that.

‘No, it’s not. That kind of talking isn’t really one of his strong suits.’

‘ _That kind_ of talking?’ She raised her eyebrows mischievously at him. ‘It sounds like he’s doing some things with you he’s not doing with me.’

She laughed, and it was easy for Clark to chime in, a light chuckle that covered up his embarrassment. He wanted to ask what Bruce was like with her, use the pieces she could give him to try to understand him better. To try to _be_ better. He decided against it. It wasn’t really any of his business, no matter how much he wanted to know.

They were waiting for the waiter to come back with the cheque when Diana reached across the table, laying her hand on Clark’s. Her palm was cool against his fingers, and her fingertips soft where they brushed over his wrist.

‘Clark,’ she said, and Clark thought for a wild moment that she was the sun incarnate for the way her smile made him feel, ‘if _you_ would ever want to, then… I’d like that. But only if you want.’

She kept her hand on his as she accepted the bill and signed it left-handed, her signature looking just as precise as ever. She walked him back to the _Planet_ building and leaned in to kiss his cheek.

‘Think about it. Or don’t. Only if you want to.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Clark said, and meant it.

* * *

Bruce had three fingers inside him when Clark realised that he maybe should tell him about his conversation with Diana.

Clark was sprawled naked on the bed. Bruce’s shirt was open, the map of his scars dark against the white cotton. Clark had kissed each of them after his first orgasm of the night. Bruce sat on his haunches, his fingers stretching and his brow furrowed. He looked concerned.

They hadn’t done this before.

Clark felt like he had been waiting _forever_. Bruce’s fingers were stretching and searching and so good and nowhere near enough.

Finally, Bruce spoke.

‘Hands and knees, I think.’ He patted the bed next to him. ‘Here, facing the edge. I’m washing my hands.’

Clark felt empty when he pulled out, and he stayed where he was as Bruce kissed the inside of his knees before he stepped off the bed. Then he moved to the place Bruce had indicated, kneeling on the bed. He was facing the lake, the windows’ privacy mode allowing him to see his reflection as well as he would in any mirror. He studied himself: the heat in his cheeks; his hair already a sweaty mess in his forehead; his eyes a darker shade of blue.

Bruce returned, still wringing his hands on a towel. He tossed the towel onto the end of the bed and started undressing. Clark could see him watching him as he pulled the shirt off his shoulders, janked at his belt, shoved down his slacks, kicked off his socks. (With the socks, Clark bit back a laugh. In a situation so sexual that Clark wasn’t quite sure if he’d be able to _talk_ , the concept of socks was so unsexy that it was almost funny.) He circled the bed, hand lazily pumping his cock back to a full erection. He studied him with a measured focus. He reached out and found Clark’s jaw with his free hand, his palm stretched over his throat. It wasn’t a chokehold, but it was a stake of ownership. Clark shuddered.

‘I said hands and knees, I believe?’ 

Clark moved forward and planted his palms against the soft bedding. Bruce’s fingers followed, stroking along Clark’s skin as he pulled back. He patted his cheek, a gesture that was infuriating, belittling, and far far too arousing.

‘Good boy.’ Bruce got onto the bed and situated himself behind Clark, a palm pressed in the small of his back. ‘I like this. I like being able to watch the pretty faces you make when I fuck you. And god, do I want to fuck you.’ He leaned down to kiss Clark’s shoulder blades, down his spine, one kiss for each vertebra. ‘But are you sure about this?’

‘Yes, fuck, Bruce, I’m sure.’ Clark rocked his body back, hoping to feel Bruce’s cock brush against him, hoping it was _finally_ time.

They’d been going over this for weeks. The discussion had started with a question from Bruce: _if I try to fuck you, will that break me?_ Clark’s sputtered answer had been met with a raised eyebrow and homework. After some googling that seemed to have irrevocably skewed his online ads to be either suggestive or outright lewd, he had given up and visited a sex toy store on the other side of Metropolis. Five mind-shattering orgasms later, spread over a couple of days, Clark was _pretty_ sure he wouldn’t accidentally crush Bruce to a powder. _Pretty sure_ hadn’t been good enough for Bruce, who had spread Clark across the bed and worked him open and begging with a series of toys. Finally, Bruce opened a condom wrapper with his teeth and rolled it onto the glass dildo that had been waiting on the bedside table. _Stainless steel is better_ , he had commented wryly as he slowly slowly treacherously slowly pushed the toy inside, _but I am not made of steel_. When Clark came he clenched his toes enough to rip the Egyptian linen, but the toy was whole. Still light-headed from the orgasm, he tried to say something about how glass toys are tempered so as _not_ to be breakable, but Bruce just laughed and lapped at the cum on his chest. _Yes, I know. That’s why I made my own_.

Of _course_ he had.

‘Patience, patience, honey.’ Clark heard the _pop_ of a lid. He could feel the non-distinct smell of more lubricant, blending with the smell of Bruce. He felt the hand on his back move, press at his ass. ‘Fuck, who would’ve thought you were so needy? Who would’ve thought that you want to be fucked this badly?’

There – the head of Bruce’s cock was pressed against Clark’s hole, and it was so close. Just a little bit of pressure. Just a tiny push. Clark whined and pushed back. Bruce must have expected that, as he moved back, just out of reach.

‘Bruce, I swear to God–’

‘Feeling religious tonight, baby?’ Bruce was leering at him, enjoying his impatience. ‘I need you to behave for me. Stay still, and I’ll fuck you.’

Clark had never been so still in his entire life.

‘Good. Good, Clark. You’re so very good.’ Another set of kisses on his shoulder blades, and then–

Bruce had said hands and knees, but surely elbow and knees were fine, at least when the first stroke – barely breaching him and yet feeling like _everything_ – knocked the breath out of him and Clark buried his face in the sheets and whimpered and Bruce rocked his body, letting him take a little bit more each time and he was so much bigger than any of the toys they’d used and Clark wanted all of him and he wanted it now and he wanted he wanted he _wanted_.

‘Clark, lift your head. Let me see your face.’ Bruce murmured the words softly, moving barely deeper with each stroke. Clark’s reflection was bleary and his eyes were wet with tears. ‘Are you okay? Do you need me to stop?’

‘Please don’t stop.’ Clark managed, the words pouring out like water, the syllables barely differentiated.

‘Are you _okay_?’ Bruce repeated. His hands were on Clark’s hips, and he brushed his thumbs softly over his skin.

‘I’m good I’m good I’m so so good but I need more of you I need you to fuck me please please please–’

‘Well. Since you asked _so nicely_ –’

This wasn’t a small push, not like how Bruce had moved before. This was deep, and as it grazed his prostate he couldn’t see anything, hear anything, feel anything, just the burning in his ears and his eyes and the pleasure that reduced him to clay in Bruce’s hands. He whined but kept his head up, mostly because of Bruce’s hand in his hair, holding him in place.

‘Just _look_ at you,’ – and Bruce’s eyes were bright as he shifted deeper, as he made Clark shudder with movements that were barely anything at all – ‘you’re going to come like this, aren’t you? Good thing I got you off already, or you would’ve been gone already, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you?’

Clark managed to nod, even though the pull of Bruce’s fingers felt like a million tiny needles, a pain that wasn’t quite pain, just a perfect and unfathomably sensation, that was pushing him closer and closer to a second orgasm. (Clark wondered if he should mind the way Bruce treated him when they fucked: how he spoke so calmly as he tore Clark’s composure apart like it was nothing; how he ended up on the wrong side of condescending and how Clark lapped it up; how he relished in reducing Clark to nothing at all and did so while praising Clark for it. He didn’t mind it at all. He loved it. He prayed that he would never have to give it up.)

Bruce bowed his head when he was as deep inside Clark as he could ever be. He moved the hand in his hair to his shoulder, the fingers light across his skin. He kissed Clark’s neck, the touch as reverential as the shift of his hips was profane.

‘Okay?’ he asked against his skin, his breath cool and maddening.

‘Yeah, good very good.’ Five syllables, all things considered, wasn’t bad.

‘ _You’re_ good,’ Bruce murmured against his jaw and he started moving again, small thrusts that grew deeper and deeper, a hand across Clark’s throat again, fingers sprawled across his jaw, ‘good to me perfect to me let me be good to you I want to make you beg I want to make you come let me make you come let me–’

It wasn’t that Clark hadn’t come without being touched before. He had, but not like this, not bone-deep and searing and hard enough that the world faded into a scream of white and for once, for blessed once, he could hear _nothing at all._ Until he could: Bruce’s ragged sighs of laughter; the wind in the pines outside, the sound of skin of skin; the soft roll of water against the shore; the soft and low praise in his ear.

(Clark almost wondered if he could’ve come from the praise alone.)

Bruce waited until Clark lifted his hand in a haphazard thumbs up gesture before he started moving again, quick and shallow thrusts. He pushed at the spot between his shoulder blades and Clark let himself fall. With one hand on his shoulder and the other on his hip, Bruce fucked him in a way that was somehow both careful and mindless. He kept talking, compliments and lewd comments which weren’t even original, but which washed over Clark like gusts on a suffocatingly hot August day. He liked to hear the things Bruce let slip. (The things he sometimes said, the things Clark wasn’t sure if he was allowed to believe: _you’re mine you’re mine Clark, you’re so beautiful and you’re mine._ ) When the praise trailed off, Clark knew he was close. He had pulled him back onto his elbows, his arm around his chest and his face pressed against his back, each breath a cool puff on his skin. Bruce keened as he came, fingernails digging into unbreakable skin, sweaty forehead pressed into his shoulder.

Some time later – seconds? minutes? – Bruce collapsed back on the bed after throwing him the towel. Clark made a calculated decision and collapsed next to him, his head under Bruce’s outstretched arm. Bruce didn’t do cuddles, but Clark hoped this was far enough from an embrace to be allowed. He made a sound – a low _mhmph_ that neither seemed to be encouragement nor a complaint – but stayed where he was.

‘Move your head and I’ll start the shower. You’re filthy.’

 _You’re filthy_ , Clark didn’t say as he lifted his head and watched Bruce cross the room. Whenever he moved, it was as though he was expecting an audience. Like someone striding across a stage, he moved with confidence and purpose. Clark envied him for the ease with which he moved when naked. Clark had never wanted anyone quite this much.

‘The shower won’t help if you’re not in it, come on up. Do I have to drag you?’

‘No, I’ll get up.’ Clark promised, allowing himself another ten seconds on the bed, hoping his legs were strong enough to hold him.

Bruce was waiting for him at the edge of the bed, hand outstretched. When Clark accepted it, Bruce pulled at the sheet, dislodging the perfect corners that couldn’t be of his making, and dragging until the sheet was half off the bed.

‘Come on; let’s get you clean.’

The shower was hot and perfect. The water fell like rain and Bruce’s fingers running up and down his arms, rubbing soap across his skin, felt like heaven. Clark bowed his head when Bruce reached up and began to lather the shampoo.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked quietly, as though any loud sounds would startle him.

‘I’m very good. Very very good. Thank you.’ Clark had his eyes closed, savouring the feeling of the water and of Bruce and of being taken care of.

‘You’re welcome.’ The kiss was a whisper on his cheekbone. ‘And thank you, too.’

‘’snothing.’

(Clark wondered if this was what it was like to be high, floating and satisfied and happy with whatever was happening.)

‘I have to go out soon.’

This was the first time Bruce said it like he was sorry, like it was a commitment he couldn’t break. 

‘I’ll get out of your hair.’

‘Speaking of hair, come back under the showerhead.’

The water sluiced over his head, his hair, his face. He rubbed his palm over his face several times before he opened his eyes again. Bruce was looking at him, water droplets in his eyelashes, his face soft in the recessed lights of the en suite. Clark wanted to kiss him, so he did.

‘Do you need me to make the bed?’

‘ _Hm_.’ Bruce huffed against his lips, one hand on his shoulder and the other reaching behind him, grabbing a different bottle of shampoo. ‘I’ll be fine. Alfred’s coming in. I’ll badger him if it’s a quiet patrol.’

Clark recognised the shampoo, the bland, uninteresting smell of Batman’s hair beneath the cowl.

‘Does he know?’

 _About us_ , Clark doesn’t finish the sentence.

‘Not in so many words.’

Bruce rubbed himself with bar soap. Dial brand, Clark’s brain supplied. Plain, anonymous. Perfect for Batman.

‘But he knows.’

Somehow, it mattered whether Alfred knew. (Somehow, it mattered whether Alfred _approved_.)

‘He’s not fucking stupid.’

‘Arthur and Barry don’t think you’re sleeping with Diana.’ Clark blurted. He didn’t mean to say it.

Bruce frowned at him.

‘How do you know that?’

‘They talked about it a while back. Barry said that if you were – sleeping with anyone on the team, it wouldn’t be Diana.’ Clark wanted to say _if you were fucking anyone_ , but his tongue got caught on the words.

‘ _Hm_.’ Bruce didn’t look mad, but he didn’t look half as relaxed as he had a minute ago. He turned off the shower and stepped across the bathroom, tossing a towel for Clark. ‘The implication being... you?’

‘I’d assume.’ Clark stepped from foot to foot as he rubbed the water from his hair. He was wondering if this was going to turn into a fight. ‘I don’t think they thought I was listening.’

‘And why _were_ you listening?’

Clark chewed the inside of his cheek as he dried himself off, trying to think of a way to answer the question without annoying Bruce.

‘I was distracted,’ he admitted, ‘you and Diana were training. I was – thinking.’

‘Thinking? Sounds dangerous.’

Clark followed Bruce from the bathroom to the bedroom. _Most_ of Clark’s clothes were there, but he was missing a jacket, his shirt, and – somehow – one of his shoes.

‘Speaking of Diana…’

‘Speaking of Diana…?’ Bruce prompted when Clark trailed off.

‘We had lunch the other week. She kind of – um – I guess she kind of propositioned me.’

‘Took her long enough.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means what it means. I’m surprised that she waited this long.’

Clark followed Bruce to the kitchen, where he slid a glass of water over to him and dug into one of the granola and yoghurt cups that he knew Alfred prepared for him before each of his patrols. He waited for Bruce to say something. When Bruce was scraping the bottom of the container, Clark gave up on waiting.

‘Would you mind?’

‘If you fuck?’ He tossed the spoon into the sink and placed the glass in the dishwasher with only slightly more care. ‘That would be hypocritical, wouldn’t you think?’

‘I guess.’

‘It’s your body.’ He downed the glass of water that Clark hadn’t touched. ‘I don’t own you.’

(The words were a stark contrast to what he had said before, to the way he had buried his face in Clark’s neck and professed to the darkness of the bedroom that he was _his_.)

‘No, you don’t,’ Clark agreed, not quite sure if either of them quite believed that.

* * *

It didn’t take Clark long to realise that things were different with Diana than with Bruce. If Bruce was the night, Diana was the first rays of morning light. (Maybe Perry had a point when he suggested that Clark had a tendency to slip in dramatic metaphors when he was passionate about something.) Diana was _normal_. No, of course she wasn’t normal, but she was strange in the way Clark was strange, inhuman and yet in love with humanity. A kindred spirit, perhaps. Someone who – Clark was pretty sure – he would have been passionately in love with in another universe. 

In this universe, he was pretty damn fond of her.

He liked their first kiss, stolen on a walk through the woods at the back of the Wayne estate. The air had smelled like pine and sap. She laughed when he lifted them off the ground, one arm around her waist. She kissed him back, slow and sweet.

He liked her smile, which could be kind and cunning at the same time. He liked the way her eyes twinkled when she laughed and how determined her eyes were. She was unapologetic in her emotions, and generous with affection. She greeted him with embraces and she murmured in appreciation when he kissed her neck. She asked him to tell him what he wanted, and she told her what she would like. Her expression sat somewhere between fire and coyness when she affixed Clark’s wrists to her bedframe with one of Bruce’s ties, one that she had (or so she claimed) stolen once while he was being difficult about whether Homer had existed. She worked her way over his body, kisses and touches, affection and openness. The restraint was symbolic, but he stayed in place and watched her. He liked that, too.

He liked the nights they spent in her Paris apartment, feet swinging off the edge of her balcony, sharing a bottle of wine and an assortment of cheeses that Clark loved and Diana always seemed to have lying around, debating Euripides and Aeschylus. She would rummage through her impossibly tall bookshelves, find the volume she was looking for, and read chorus after chorus in the original Greek. Clark rested his head on the threshold and closed his eyes, the foreign vowels warming the autumn chill. It felt like one of those big city middle school sleepovers he always saw in films growing up but had never experienced himself.

He liked that she was such a good friend. That she knew that he kissed her and cared for her and that he was very probably in love with Bruce.

* * *

Bruce knew. Of course Bruce knew. About Clark and Diana. (Sometimes, during the early mornings Clark spent floating above the atmosphere, where no one could hear him, he could admit to himself that he probably knew the other thing as well.) After their first kiss, when they both returned from their walk, Bruce had raised an eyebrow at him and twisted the corner of his mouth. As they waited for everyone to arrive, Bruce had touched his shoulder, just for a moment, a quick short squeeze to say that everything was good, that he approved. Clark allowed himself to lean into the touch for the brief time it lasted.

They didn’t talk about him, not usually. Sometimes he came up in conversation, and they talked about him like any two friends might talk about a third. Things like: _Did you hear Bruce’s speech at that hospital opening?_ Or: _Next time you see Bruce, could you yell at him to get some sleep?_ Sometimes Diana asked, with her eyes far too knowing, how everything was. Clark blushed and stammered and said that it was good, really, it was really _good_.

(It was good, Bruce’s hands on him and Bruce’s breath against his and Bruce’s presence in his life. He had let his guard down enough that he didn’t mind when Clark dropped by earlier in the evening, and that he didn’t complain when Clark stayed until the early afternoon when they met up after Bruce’s patrol. Clark would slouch in a chair and work or read while Bruce worked on something new with which to intimidate Gotham’s villains. They didn’t really talk about anything, but the silence was comfortable. They didn’t talk about Diana. They didn’t talk about their feelings. Except... One day Bruce Wayne showed up at the Daily Planet and whisked Clark off for lunch. It was an interview, naturally. Clark scrawled illegible notes over mulligatawny soup as Bruce drawled on about renewable energy and the appeal of vacationing on the French riviera. Throughout lunch, he felt Bruce’s Oxfords press against his shin and Bruce looked at him with an expression that Clark wouldn’t dare call warm, but he couldn’t think of any description that fit as well. When Clark came back, everyone agreed that an impromptu interview like that was definitely the sort of thing the twinned city’s favourite eccentric beautiful billionaire would do.)

Diana beamed and pulled him to her.

‘That’s good,’ she said and kissed him.

* * *

‘I’ve been thinking about Bruce.’

Diana blew on her hot cocoa, her mittens the same shade of red as her take-away cup. Metropolis was cold today, but she had insisted on sitting in the park. Her nose was a dusky pink. Clark wanted to kiss her, kiss her nose, and see if it was as cold as it looked.

‘What about Bruce?’

‘I wonder what he would be like, without us – without you.’ Her breath came in tiny cumulus clouds. ‘Even now, he’s… aphotic.’

‘I don’t know what that means.’

‘Without light.’ The corner of her mouth twisted, in the exact way Bruce did when he had to explain things that Clark should already know. ‘I don’t think he believes he’s worthy of love. And you – you love him, don’t you?’

Clark opened his mouth, willing the words _Of course I love him_ to form between his lips and be able to actually allow them into the world.

‘I asked that wrong.’ She made a face, like a child tasting a lemon for the first time. She looked at him and smiled. ‘You’re in love with him.’

‘I– yes. I guess.’

‘ _I guess_.’ She repeated, and she was right to use that tone – he shouldn’t try to lie about this, not when it was almost all he had been thinking about for weeks and months, not when he had considered this long before Bruce laid his hands on him. ‘Am I in the way? For you?’

She turned her head to look at him, her eyebrows furrowed just so, concern etched in the corners of her eyes. He kissed her forehead, her cheekbones, as though to smooth away her worries. He usually didn’t kiss her in public. Maybe in Paris, but not in Metropolis. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, but – he wouldn’t know how he would explain this to someone at work, and despite its sprawling size, he felt like he could hardly walk a block in Metropolis without seeing a vague acquaintance.

‘No, you’re not. I’m not in love with you, but I do love you. And I – I do like what we do together.’

Diana leaned her head against his shoulder, accepting the arm Clark wrapped around her.

‘As do I.’ She fell silent and seemed to hesitate, so unlike her serenity and candour. Minutes passed before she spoke again. ‘I would like to see you together. And I’d like to be a part of it. Not always, but – once.’

Clark stared at a squirrel in a tree, its bushy tail straight as a rod while its body swayed this way and that. He blinked several times. Had Diana just asked– yes, she had. 

‘Are you asking if I want to have – uh – a threesome?’ Saying the word was much more embarrassing than the concept itself. Diana’s hands on him. Bruce’s hands on him. Of course he wanted that.

‘Yes.’ She looked at him, her eyes closer to black than Bruce’s hazel ever were. She watched him, her lips pressed together, holding back a smile. 

‘Yeah, I would.’

Diana’s lips on his cheek were barely a kiss, but comforting nonetheless, cold and gentle.

‘I’ll talk to Bruce the next time I see him. Unless you want to do that?’

Clark considered.

‘No, I think you should do it. Your idea after all.’ He smiled.

She grinned, white teeth and red lips, and brushed her mouth across his forehead. 

* * *

_So?_

A simple text message from Diana, sent to both Clark and Bruce. Even without context, its meaning was painfully clear. Clark worried his lip, locking and unlocking his phone as though that act would help him figure out what the hell to say.

Five hundred and forty-seven seconds after that message arrived, a second message, from Bruce.

_Dinner next Saturday?_

Clark exhaled in relief. That settled that.

* * *

It shouldn’t surprise Clark that when Bruce had said “dinner”, food was actually included. He was the first to arrive, and kept Bruce company while neither of them helped Alfred.

‘Would you like a hand?’ Clark asked. Alfred looked at him: his elbows propped up on the kitchen island; his fingertips stained with ink.

‘No. Have a drink with master Bruce and stay out of the way.’

A squat crystal glass was placed in front of him, the large square ice cube clinking against the walls of the glass. Clark sipped the drink. The spectacular shade of red, more reminiscent of strawberry kool-aid than anything else, betrayed a beverage bitter as sin. Bruce smirked, eyes twinkling, behind his own glass.

‘What _is_ that?’

‘Campari and gin.’

Clark had another sip. No, still unbearably bitter.

‘I can’t drink this.’

Bruce raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. He opened his mouth to say something – Clark could almost already hear the far-too-sweet _Clark, I_ believe _in you_ – when Diana arrived. Instead, he held up Clark’s abandoned drink at her.

‘A drink?’ he asked.

Diana kissed Alfred’s cheek when she walked past him, giving his arm a quick squeeze before she joined the other two at the end of the kitchen island.

‘Yes, thank you.’ She took a sip and sighed, contented.

‘Full disclosure, Clark _tried_ to drink that and gave up.’

She grinned and reached out to give Clark a hug, then Bruce. He caught her hand and kissed her knuckles before releasing her.

‘What do you have against Campari?’

‘It looks like it should be sweet, and then it’s not. It’s confusing and it’s very bitter. I don’t understand how you’re drinking it.’ Clark shrugged.

(He realised that if he were to kiss either of them right now, he would taste the sharp orange and heady cinnamon. _That_ would be bearable.)

Alfred cleared his throat and gave Bruce a pointed look.

‘We’re being kicked out. Let’s go to the dining room. Clark, I’ll fix you something else.’

“Something else” turned out to be a gin and tonic, a far more acceptable beverage. They sat in the dining room, Clark and Diana watching Bruce as he buzzed around the room, uncorking a bottle of wine and pouring it into a decanter. They talked about work – _civilian_ work, of all things. Diana told them about the latest pieces she’d been working on; Clark talked about the articles he kept banging his head against without feeling like he was getting anywhere; Bruce gave a surprisingly elaborate play-by-play of the latest Wayne Enterprises gossip. It was nice, and it was comfortable. Clark felt like no time had passed at all before he heard Alfred slam the oven door shut again.

‘That’s dinner ready, think.’ Bruce bounded out of his seat. Diana and Clark followed.

‘What are you doing here?’ Alfred asked, not quite grouchily.

‘I was thinking you could tell us what we need to know about plating and then you can leave early. Take an early night.’

‘An’ – Alfred blinked – ‘early night? Who are you and what have you done with Bruce Wayne?’

‘Oh, _very_ funny.’ He reached over to steal a cucumber slice from the salad. Alfred hit him over the knuckles with a pair of tongs. ‘It’s a Saturday night. Take the night off. You’re the one who said I should have friends. I am actually, for once, taking your advice.’

Alfred considered this for several long seconds before he shrugged and launched into an explanation of the dinner. The clarified butter needed to be ladled over the salmon; there was a vinaigrette in the fridge for the salad; the potatoes had another seven minutes to go in the oven before they were ready to be tossed with the parsley and parmesan.

When he seemed confident – or at least, confident _enough_ – that Bruce would be able to finish the last steps of cooking he went and got his jacket.

‘Will there be a mess when I come in tomorrow?’

‘We’ll tidy up, I promise.’ It was hard to argue with Diana’s grin when it was that bright.

‘In that case,’ Alfred shrugged on his jacket and nodded at each other in turn, ‘do have a lovely evening. Don’t get into trouble.’

‘You know me.’ Bruce leered.

‘That’s what I’m worried about, master Bruce.’ Alfred replied, but he was smiling.

The seven minutes were up by the time Alfred had left, and Bruce led the charge on finishing dinner. The plating was maybe not as beautiful as it would’ve been if Alfred had finished everything, but the food was excellent and the company even more-so. Clark couldn’t quite pinpoint what they talked about, but the conversation flew easily. At one point, Bruce’s right hand caught Clark’s left, and he stroked his thumb over his palm as they both listened to Diana explaining the intricacies of diacritics in Hellenistic Greek and how that compared to the accent that survived on Themyscira.

When dinner finished, they cleared the dishes together. Clark filled the dishwasher while Bruce reached for three whisky glasses, doling out measures from the embossed decanter. Diana watched them and smiled when she accepted the drink. Bruce moved Clark out of the way, both hands on his shoulders, manoeuvring him with an unearned – or maybe well-earned – confidence.

‘Crystal isn’t dishwasher safe, Clark.’ Bruce tempered the criticism with a kiss behind Clark’s ear. The first kiss of night. (The brief press of Bruce’s lips against Diana’s knuckles didn’t count. Bruce would do that to _anyone_.)

Clark joined Diana by the kitchen island, clinking their glasses together. They watched Bruce clean the glasses with quick efficiency, drying each glass with a thin rag, polishing until it gleamed against the light. Clark didn’t like the whisky – far too smoky by half – but he liked Diana’s hand, running up and down his back. He leaned into her touch and let his head drop against her shoulder.

When he was finished with the glasses, Bruce turned and looked at them. Leaning against the kitchen counter, his eyes darted from Diana to Clark, then back again. He seemed to catalogue every inch of them, from Diana’s empty glass to Clark’s near-full one. He took a sip of his whisky. His leer was hungry.

‘I think this is the best we can achieve,’ he said, waving in the general direction of the dining room table, ‘Alfred will be disappointed, but not surprised.’

‘Oh, I don’t like the idea of making Alfred disappointed.’ Diana said, though she didn’t move.

Bruce leaned his elbows on the kitchen island, now perpendicular to the two of them. If Clark reached out, he could touch him. Bruce sipped his whisky.

‘Get used to it. He is.’

Diana laughed. Bruce finished his drink.

‘Are you going to finish that?’ he asked and pointed at Clark’s glass. He finished that, too, in one gulp.

‘Are you nervous, Bruce?’ Diana reached out to touch him, her slender fingers brushing over the back of his palm.

‘I’ve never been nervous in my life,’ Bruce said with casual ease. He turned his hand and wrapped his fingers around Diana’s, kissing each knuckle in turn. ‘But I don’t think we should desecrate the kitchen.’

He led them – his hand in Diana’s, hers in Clark’s – to the sitting room. They stood in the centre of the room, a loose triangle, each turned to the others.

‘I don’t think there’ll be any desecration at all.’

Diana spoke softly as she took a step closer to Bruce. She spoke to him like a warden would to a dangerous animal, low soothing tones. Clark could almost see how Bruce softened at her words, at her gentle caress along his hairline. (Clark wondered if _he_ could calm Bruce like that.) A hand on her waist – not pulling her closer, not pushing her away. His eyes were on her face until they darted back to Clark. His free hand was raised, palm up, beckoning.

She kissed the path her fingers had travelled, each kiss slow and careful. Bruce tilted his head to give her access to his neck, to the soft spot behind his ear that always made him shudder. With the movement, his face was inches from Clark’s. Bruce’s free hand had come to a rest on Clark’s chest, two fingers curled around a shirt button. Clark thought, with the uncertain focus of someone who knew he was about to be kissed, that the way Bruce held them each was very telling. Diana, like something delicate, something beautiful, something to be cherished. Clark, like he would try to run away. Like he was something to be claimed.

‘Hi.’ Clark said.

Bruce huffed. Diana laughed against his neck, a hand blindly reaching out to touch Clark’s shoulder, to squeeze his arm in reassurance.

‘Hello.’ Bruce replied, and closed the distance between them.

It was a new kind of kiss. Bruce was always desperate, fighting, calculating with Clark. This – this was soft and chasing, gentle and wanting in equal parts. If Bruce kissed him a million more times, it would never be like this. Perfect.

Fingers in his hair, long and slender – Diana’s, not Bruce’s. Slow gentle kisses that seemed to last forever. Diana’s fingers moved from his temple down his jaw, down to gently curve around Bruce’s chin, and Clark could feel her press her fingertips into his skin, a silent request. He could feel Bruce smile against his mouth before he turned his head.

‘You should’ve put your hair up.’

Bruce murmured the words against Diana’s cheekbone, planting a kiss there before leaning his head to kiss her mouth. Diana tittered and reached out with a hand to place it on top of Bruce’s, sprawled across Clark’s chest. Clark just watched them at first. The hand Bruce had held against her waist moved to her hair, brushing through it and pulling it behind her hair, exposing her neck and trailing his fingers feather-soft over her skin. 

They were the most beautiful thing Clark had ever seen.

Part of him wanted to kneel for them, show his devotion in this act of submission, yielding to them both. But Clark knew they already knew that he would do anything for them.

So he placed his hand on top of theirs, keeping them close to his heart. He kissed their necks – and their pleased gasps were better than the finest wine. He kissed across their faces, quick short kisses that were more tender than sexual. He buried his face against Diana’s throat and breathed them in. The world contracted to this small piece of earth, to these two bodies. He could smell Diana: expensive French perfume in her hair, the wet arousal between her legs, the final remnants of whisky on her breath. He could smell Bruce: whisky and sweat overridden by the scent of his cologne, cedar and musk. He reached for his free hand so he could place it on his cheek, so he could breathe him in. Bruce moved his fingers in a soft caress across his skin.

It was Diana who finally spoke.

‘I seem to remember’ – and her voice was deep and raw, like Bruce had kissed away every inch of her control – ‘that you have a bed.’

‘I do have a bed,’ Bruce confirmed, his voice equally stripped of restraint, and leaned down to kiss Clark, once, twice. ‘Are you suggesting we move in that direction? Come on, then.’

He led them again, this time one hand in each of his. Diana interlaced her fingers with Clark’s and she smiled at him.

‘Diana, get on the bed.’

Clark would _never_ have told Diana to do something, and he half-expected for her to refuse. But she kissed Clark’s wrist and kicked off her heels and slipped onto the bed. Bruce manoeuvred Clark onto the edge of the bed, boxed in between his legs. Diana was behind him, her knees barely touching the small of his back.

For a long moment, Bruce just looked at him. His thumb was hooked under his jaw, tipping his head back. He stared at him, breathing heavily through his mouth, his chest rising and falling. He looked utterly overcome. He put their foreheads together, his eyes screwed shut.

‘Bruce…’

Bruce exhaled through his nose and brushed his mouth over Clark’s before he pulled back.

‘Clark, I–’ he looked in control again, though there was still something Clark couldn’t name in his eyes. He exhaled once more before he continued. ‘I’m going to take your clothes off now.’

Clark wasn’t sure that was what he had intended to say.

Bruce spread his legs and moved to stand between them, confidently and slowly undoing Clark’s shirt. Diana leaned forward to kiss Clark’s throat, to crane her neck and reach his mouth. As they kissed, Bruce stilled, trembling fingers spread across his chest. (Clark liked this. He liked being watched.)

‘ _Christ_.’ Bruce murmured and undid the final buttons.

He pushed at the fabric and Diana shifted it off his shoulders, kissing the exposed skin. Clark turned back to look at Bruce who had knelt, his palms pressed against the inside of his thighs.

‘You look good there.’

Diana had her chest against Clark’s back, her chin resting on his shoulder. The silk of her dress felt teasing against his bare skin. He wondered if Bruce had bought it for her. If he had, he didn’t mind. She was beautiful in it.

Bruce smiled up at them, his grin all teeth and pride.

‘It’s a good place to be.’ As if to prove his point, he rested his face against Clark’s clothed dick, dragging his nose and mouth across his erection. ‘Between the three of us – what do you think? Half a dozen should be doable?’

‘Half a dozen–’

Clark lost his train of thought when Diana kissed his neck again, trailing patterns with the tip of her tongue, following each touch with slow open-mouthed kisses. He was light-headed with it all and they weren’t even having sex yet.

‘Half a dozen sounds doable.’ She cooed and blew cold air over the trail of kisses.

When Clark reached for Bruce’s buttons, he caught his hands and pressed them flat over his shirt.

‘Not yet.’ Bruce was undoing the laces of Clark’s shoes.

‘I want to see you.’

‘All in good time.’ He nuzzled his crotch again, almost apologetically. ‘Good things come to those who wait, sunshine. Up, up, move up the bed. God, you’re big.’

Diana’s laugh was as light and calming as wind chimes on a quiet spring day. Clark kissed her.

‘How do I get this off you?’ he asked after feeling down her back, not finding a zipper where he expected it.

‘It’s a side zipper – no, other side.’

Clark was kissing her and doing a terrible job of unzipping her dress when he heard two _clunks_ of shoes hitting the floor and felt the bed shift under the added weight of Bruce.

‘ _Oh_.’

Diana exhaled into his mouth and Clark pulled back to glance back down – at Bruce, kneeling before them both, one hand trailing up her leg under her dress and watching them both, dark eyes sparkling. Diana made another sound and Clark realised he was touching her, and Clark wanted to _see_.

‘Let me get this dress off you.’

‘Take your fucking pants off.’

‘Good things come to those who wait, Bruce.’

Diana was still smiling, warm and inviting, but her eyes were dark and she breathed short, sharp breaths. Clark had always understood that Bruce was better with her than he had ever managed to be, but knowing and seeing were two different things. (He liked seeing.)

Unzipping the dress was easier when he wasn’t kissing her, though Bruce’s cocked head and smug smile was another kind of distraction. Between the two of them – Clark tugging at the dress, Diana lifting her hips so he could ease it off her – he was able to pull it off her. He kissed her freshly exposed skin, pale and soft and unscarred (so unlike Bruce’s). He unclasped her bra and touched her breasts, softly, carefully, reverentially, as though he hadn’t done this before, as though her skin was a foreign country.

That wasn’t new, but what was new was Bruce’s fingers fucking her, the same black lace that matched her bra barely pushed aside. Bruce had preened at him before, smug and proud and confident, but never quite this much, never quite so pleased.

‘Clark. _Pants_.’

‘Gods, you’re bossy with him.’ Diana hooked a leg over Bruce’s shoulder, pulling him closer. She leaned her head against Clark’s neck, kissing his jaw. ‘But he’s right. Take them off.’

He didn’t want to stop touching Diana, he didn’t want to stop watching Bruce, but – taking off his trousers also sounded _good_. So he kissed Diana once more, twice more, another half-a-dozen times before he shuffled back and undid his fly, pulled off his slacks and underwear in one go, tearing off his socks and throwing them off the bed. It wasn’t elegant, but at least it was fast.

‘Here.’ Bruce patted the space on the bed next to Diana. ‘On your back.’

Bruce moved to the other side of the bed and put his fingers in his mouth. Clark wanted to taste her on his lips. Diana watched Bruce watching him, his wet fingers tracing along Clark’s muscles. He leaned down for a kiss – the taste of Diana with the force of Bruce – before he pulled back and wrapped his fingers around him, giving him a long and languid stroke.

‘I want to make you come,’ – he began, licking his lips and pressing a little harder – ‘do you want me to suck you off?’

‘ _Yeah,_ ’ Clark breathed the word, an exhale more than an actual word.

Bruce glanced at Diana, winking at her. (Why didn’t Bruce ever wink at _him_?)

‘Tell me, Clark,’ he said conversationally, the tone at odds with the movement of his wrist, ‘would you like Diana to suck you off too?’

Clark hesitated. Was this a trick question? There was a part of him that was worried the wrong answer to this would screw this up. But Diana was sitting up, one hand propping her up, the other touching Clark – his collarbones, his chest, his stomach.

‘Yes?’ He licked his lips and tried again, wanting to scrub the question mark from his answer. ‘Yes.’

‘What do you think, princess?’ Bruce asked, literally talking over him.

She grinned, lazy and pleased.

‘Ask and you shall receive.’ She paused for a moment. ‘But maybe I should put my hair up.’

‘There should be some in the drawer. You always leave them everywhere.’

Diana laughed and leaned over to kiss Bruce, then Clark. She pulled back and rummaged in the drawer for an appropriate hair clip. Bruce stayed where he was, his grip around Clark’s cock loose and slow and maddening.

Clark wondered, not for the first time, why Bruce was always so reluctant to take his clothes off. Was it because of his scars? Clark had never told him, but he loved the scars. Not for the pain they evidenced, but for what they proved: his drive, his tenacity, his courage. Was it an assertion of power? It would make sense but – _oh_ , how Clark loved to feel his skin against his.

As soon as Diana pinned her hair back with a large claw hair clip, she gave Clark another kiss and moved down the bed. Her fingers wrapped over Bruce’s and Clark let his head fall onto the pillow.

‘You know,’ Bruce burred against his thigh, ‘watching is half the fun.’

Clark lifted his head. Clark watched.

He watched Bruce watch Diana tip her head and run her tongue up his cock, the movement slow and careful. He watched Bruce exhale and lean down to join Diana, tongue and lips and precise focus. He watched them kiss as much as they sucked him off, trading slow wet kisses as Diana ran her fingers over him and Bruce never stopped touching. He watched Bruce lean back and watch Diana, his jaw slack and his breaths quick and shallow.

‘Jesus.’

He glanced up at Clark – oh, how dark his eyes were – and touched Diana’s cheek, her ear, her hair. Clark could _feel_ Diana smile. Bruce sat there, touching her head, his other hand closed in a fist. He was still fully dressed. Clark wanted to peel him out of that expensive shirt, tear off those stupid slacks, have him, be had by him. He wanted to kiss Diana and touch Diana and watch Bruce between her thighs, his dark hair falling over his forehead, her pale cheeks flushed and her lipstick a mess from so many kisses. He wanted – he wanted to–

Coming was almost a surprise, tearing from the back of his skull to the tips of his toes, sudden and deep. He swallowed the yelp into a low groan, palm pressed over his mouth to muffle the sound. Diana waited until his shivers subsided before she sat up and swallowed. From where he lay, Clark watched Bruce lean into her again, deep hungry kisses with intent.

‘How are you feeling?’ Bruce had moved up the bed. They weren’t quite kissing, maybe an inch of air between them, but Clark could smell his come on Bruce’s breath, could see how dark his eyes were, could feel his breath on his face, just a little fast. Diana’s lipstick had transferred to Bruce, a drag of deep red across his flushed mouth.

‘I feel like you should take your clothes off.’ To prove his point, he pulled at Bruce’s collar.

‘I’ll take my clothes off when I’ll fuck you.’ Bruce said, conversationally, kissing his way down Clark’s face.

‘Then fuck me.’

Bruce’s breath against his throat was shuddering and hot. (How could it be hot when Clark ran hotter than a human? Clark wondered, but that didn’t _matter_ , not now, not with Bruce so close to him and Diana’s fingers running up and down his leg.) He sat up again, and tracked his eyes down Clark’s body like he had all the time in the world. Like he wasn’t desperate to fuck him. Like Clark couldn’t _smell_ him, arousal and need and sweat. Bruce pulled back, on his haunches again.

‘What do you think about that, princess?’ 

Diana smiled.

‘Yes. Where do you want me?’

She reached over Clark to pull at Bruce’s shirt, long fingers working the buttons. Bruce had undressed Clark; Clark had undressed Diana; for Diana to unclothe Bruce was only appropriate. Bruce lolled his head, letting it fall so he met Clark’s eyes again.

‘Clark?’

He considered.

‘Top of the bed,’ he decided.

When Diana had undone the cufflinks and pulled away, Clark sat again. He was level with Bruce now, so he kissed him and slipped the dress shirt off his shoulders. (Surely Diana wouldn’t mind the help.) He kissed Bruce’s collarbones, his shoulders, the broad strong expanse of his chest. He could feel Diana’s eyes on them. She moved to the top of the bed, her toes brushing against Clark’s hip.

‘So, if she’s at the top of the bed, this would put you’ – Bruce pulled away, looking from Clark to Diana to the rest of the bed, strategising and manoeuvring Clark to face Diana, his hands on his shoulder blades – ‘here, right?’

‘Yes,’ Clark agreed, leaning on his palms to get closer to Diana. Bruce kissed his shoulder blade.

He must have stepped off the bed to get the lubricant, but Clark had no idea when he had the time to do that. He leaned in to kiss Diana, unhurried and undemanding, kissing for the sake of kissing. Then he felt Bruce again, his hand on the small of his back, his knees nudging his calves, willing him to spread his legs. Clark pulled back, rested his forehead against Diana’s. She was watching him like he was a rare artifact. He licked his lips, trying to summon enough focus to speak. Bruce’s free hand was running up his thighs, thumbing his way slowly inward.

‘I’d like to touch you,’ Clark murmured to Diana, his hands still on either side of her hips, her breasts barely touching his chest, ‘but I don’t think I’ll be very’ – Bruce took this moment to push a finger inside Clark to the first knuckle, and Clark bit off a curse and rested his forehead against Diana’s clavicle – ‘coordinated.’

(How could something that was so far from enough feel so _good_?)

Diana laughed against his hair. Clark wondered if she was meeting Bruce’s eyes, if they were looking at each other while Bruce worked him open and Diana held him. God, Clark hoped they did. She stroked along his neck and Bruce pressed deeper, all the way now. He twitched his fingertip just-almost-right before he pulled out again and slowly slowly slowly pushed back inside. Clark exhaled a guttering sigh.

‘You don’t have to touch me,’ Diana murmured, ‘but I’d like to see your face. I’d like to watch you like this.’

With a monumental effort of will, Clark righted himself, and maybe he just pushed into Bruce’s hand just a little. (Bruce made a sound, a low _hng_ that could just as likely be a sound of approval as a sound of chastisement.) It took a few moments to figure out how to stay upright and balanced with one hand, but he planted it on the wall above Diana’s head, his other hand now free to move.

‘I’d _like_ to touch you.’ he repeated, forehead to forehead with her, his free hand hovering above her body.

‘ _Please_.’

Diana smiled at him, her tongue flicking across her lower lip. She glanced past Clark and her smile twisted, a different kind of encouragement. Clark ran his fingers across her body, from her sharp collarbone to her soft breast, across the smooth skin and strong muscles of her stomach, down through the curls, brushing across her clit before dipping down, splaying his fingers over her cunt. Clark didn’t think he’d ever felt her this wet before, and from the muted half-giggle escaping Diana’s mouth, she seemed just as pleasantly overwhelmed. Maybe it was the giggle, or maybe it was the way Diana widened her eyes just so when Clark pushed two fingers inside her, but Bruce shifted and added a second finger, shallowly fucking him.

‘ _Oh_.’

Clark wasn’t sure who had said this, a soft exhalation in the half-dark room. He wanted _so_ much. He wanted Bruce to add another finger, he wanted Bruce to hurry up, he wanted Bruce to remember that he couldn’t hurt him and just _get on with it_. He wanted to come again. And he wanted to see Diana come, eyelids fluttering and mouth red with arousal, feel her cling to him. He wanted to see her entwined with Bruce, both of them taking and yielding. He inhaled and opened his eyes – when had he closed them? – and tried to remember the rhythm.

‘Don’t try to make me come.’ Diana murmured against his lips, a hand cradling his cheek, the other touching herself with small, lazy movements. ‘We’ll get to that later. For now, let’s just – let’s just feel good.’

Time stretched into nothing and everything all at once. Clark didn’t know how long they stayed like that, three sets of intermingled breaths and touching, touching, _touching_. Diana’s face lit up when Clark’s focus fell away when Bruce added another finger, still moving just as slowly, barely spreading his fingers inside him. Diana leaned in for a kiss, fingers still ghosting over his jaw.

Bruce spoke.

‘Everything okay?’

‘Oh yes.’ Diana stroked Clark’s cheekbone and smiled.

‘Clark?’ Bruce’s palm moved from the small of his back, stroking across his back.

‘I’m good, I’m great. I’m ready. Please.’ Clark wasn’t sure if the sudden twist of Bruce’s fingers were intended to tease or to test that he really was ready, but he bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut. ‘ _Please_.’

Diana’s eyes were almost glowing.

‘I’m going to wash my hands. Flip over; I’ll want to see your face.’

The emptiness when Bruce pulled out couldn’t reasonably be called unbearable, but Clark wasn’t feeling reasonable so he whined against Diana’s shoulder. She ran her fingers through his hair and gently pushed him away.

‘Let me move so you can be comfortable. Are you having a nice time?’

‘Very.’ Clark burrowed his head into the pillow. He could smell Diana on it and below that, the scent of Bruce’s hair, the sharp bite of the shampoo Batman washed his hair with. He looked up at Diana and reached a hand out to her. ‘Are you?’

‘Terribly nice.’ She kissed the back of his palm and stroked his hair.

‘Hey.’

Bruce was back and pulled out the bedside drawer again and pulled out a foil wrapper. He leaned in to give Diana a kiss and she caught him by the belt, unbuckling it and undoing his zipper with one hand. Clark watched them: their sharp jaws, perfectly angled; the satisfied and hungry way they kissed; Diana’s hands pulling down his slacks and underwear with one firm tug; Bruce leaning into her touch. He pulled back and touched her face, his thumb pressing against the corner of her mouth. She smiled up at him.

The bed dipped just slightly when Bruce kneeled between Clark’s legs. Bruce pulled off his socks and tossed them away. He opened the wrapper and rolled the condom onto his cock with careful ease.

‘For easier clean-up later’ – he explained and kissed the inside of Clark’s thighs – ‘Diana, will you pass me a pillow?’

Clark lifted his hips and dropped back down onto the pillow. Bruce almost smiled.

‘Ready?’ 

Clark nodded. Diana held his hand.

Bruce moved carefully, one hand pressing against Clark’s thigh and pushing his leg down and apart, the other circled around his own cock, pressing inside with torturous slowness. His eyes looked black in the half-darkness. Clark could hear his breath, so short that his chest didn’t even rise and fall; Clark could smell the sweat beading along his hairline; Clark could feel him inside him, easing deeper with each cautious stroke. When he was all the way inside, when Clark could feel the jut of Bruce’s hips against the back of his thighs, he exhaled a long, shuddering breath.

He shifted his hands – one closed over Diana’s on Clark’s, the other gripped his hip bone. He rolled his hips once, experimental. He bit his lip. He must have wiped off most of Diana’s lipstick before, but he had missed a spot, a smear of dark red along his jaw. Clark reached out and dragged his fingers along the spot, over the edge of his jawline and the roughness of his barely-there stubble.

‘Getting sentimental, Kent?’ Bruce teased even as he leaned into the touch, pressing his cheek against Clark’s proffered palm.

Clark laughed – because why _wouldn’t_ he laugh in the middle of something so wonderful and strange? – and wrapped a leg around Bruce’s back.

‘Move,’ he asked.

Bruce angled closer, foreheads almost touching, his gaze burning into Clark. It wasn’t that Bruce didn’t look at him, hadn’t looked at him when they’d fucked before. But it had never been quite like this, all-encompassing and intoxicating. Clark shifted his hips, pulled Bruce closer with a heel, in all but words repeating his request for Bruce to _move_. 

‘Clark…’ Bruce licked his lips and let his fingers flutter over Clark’s face, eyebrows, cheekbones, the corner of his mouth. Clark felt sure that he knew what the next thing Bruce would say was, if only he would allow himself to _say_ it.

He didn’t say anything, instead catching Clark’s lips with his and finally, finally, _finally_ starting to move. Bruce didn’t usually kiss Clark when he fucked him and even if he did, he wasn’t like this, like Clark was oxygen and Bruce was drowning. He screwed his eyes shut and everything was Bruce. He could feel him; he could smell him; he could taste him; he could hear him, still wound so tight, still so unwilling to let loose. If he opened his eyes he would see him, his pupils blown and his mouth red from kissing. Perfect in his imperfections.

‘You’re perfect,’ Bruce murmured against his lips, like he had heard his thought and wanted to pick a fight even now.

‘ _You_ are,’ Clark countered, the words half-lost in the space between them.

If Bruce heard it, he didn’t say anything, kissing Clark once more before pulling back. Sitting up, he leered down at Clark – smug and irresistible – and flashed a glance at Diana before he wrapped his fist around Clark’s cock, the pressure just a little too much and perfect. 

‘Come for me.’

The words were somewhere between an order and a prayer. Clark could feel his orgasm growing in his toes, his fingertips, in the blood vessels of his eyelids. He bit off – a curse, Bruce’s name, a slew of words he already couldn’t remember and came for Bruce.

He felt his own cum, splattered hot against his stomach and chest. He felt the stutter in Bruce’s rhythm, the final deep stroke and the uncoordinated shallow thrusts he recognised at this point. He felt Bruce come with every fibre of his being. He felt the bed shift.

He had forgotten about Diana. Even though she had touched his hand the entire time, even though he had seen Bruce throw a grin her way, she hadn’t been in his thoughts at all. He looked over at her, trying to summon the strength for an apology, when he _saw_ her: lips parted, eyes wide, a high flush on her cheeks, a hand reaching down to touch herself. She met his eye and beamed at him before she glanced down the length of his body. She seemed to hesitate for a moment and smiled at him again before she leaned down.

Diana lapped over his chest leisurely, cleaning the cum off him with long strokes of her tongue, cold against his burning skin. He stared at her as she worked across his muscles, moving slowly and carefully. Bruce had to be staring, too, as he hadn’t moved an inch since he’d come, his hands still on Clark, his cock twitching and softening inside him. When she was pleased with her work – when she was done – she smiled a close-mouthed grin at Clark and turned to Bruce, opening her mouth and angling towards him. Bruce took her chin between forefinger and thumb and pulled her closer, kissing her and licking into her mouth, as though he wanted to fuck her too, as though he hadn’t just come and was far past more fucking, as though he wanted Clark’s cum for himself.

Clark felt filthy for how much he enjoyed this scene, for how he was already almost fully erect again. He felt so _good_. Bruce and Diana seemed pleased, and he could feel affection and arousal in equal amounts buzzing through his blood.

Far too soon, Bruce pulled away from Diana and touched her mouth with a thumb, like a replacement for a kiss. She lay down next to Clark and smiled. Bruce pulled all the way out and crouched over Clark.

‘I’m going to get cleaned up. I’ll be back in a moment. Have fun without me.’

Bruce kissed Clark. He could taste himself. He kissed Diana once, who hummed against his lips and beamed at him when he left.

‘You should let your hair down.’

Diana rolled over and looked down at him, her hair still up. She reached one hand up and shook her head, the tips of her curls tickling his nose.

‘Like this?’

He stroked her hair, tucking it behind her ear. Her dark eyes were soft with joy.

‘You’re so beautiful.’ His second sentence was interrupted by her lips on his, the kisses languid and contented. ‘I wanna make you come.’ 

‘Do you want to be inside me?’ She brushed her fingers across his face, down his throat and across his collar bones.

‘I do. Do you want me to be?’

Clark felt satisfied and yet still wanting. He could come once more. He could definitely do that. But he wanted to see her first, shivering and fulfilled. He wanted to watch her face when she came.

‘Yes.’ She moved, straddling Clark with the same ease and elegance she did everything. ‘I liked seeing you and Bruce. You’re good together. You’re both so perfect.’

It was strange, really, being complimented for how he got fucked when Diana was so carefully lowering herself, going slower than she needed, wet and warm. It was _nice_ being complimented like this. She set the pace, rising and lowering herself, one hand splayed across his chest, the other touching herself. She liked to call the shots – and Clark liked to see her like this. Her smile was white and her hair was so dark; her lipstick was smudged and somehow that was even more beautiful; her eyes glittered in satisfaction. The first time he saw her, he had wondered if she was an ancient goddess mankind had forgotten. (He was half right,though.) She had never looked as much like a goddess as she did now.

‘You’re perfect.’ Clark said when he realised that he had been staring.

Her face lit up, fond amusement in every line. She must have heard when he had tried to say the same to Bruce. She picked up the pace, both hands on his chest for leverage. Her hair kept brushing his face and each touch was a tickling caress.

It took him a while to realise that Bruce wasn’t back, that even by a generous estimate, it was far past the moment he had promised he’d be back by. Clark pushed Diana’s hair back and turned his head to the door of the en suite. There he was, leaning against the door frame, nude and soft and just as perfect, watching them with transfixed eyes and his lips parted.

‘What are you doing over there?’ Diana spoke and leaned back, the angle just right. (And that – that was _good_. Clark bit his lip and thought about the square root of pi.)

‘I didn’t want to interrupt you.’ Bruce sounded – almost cautious. Like _he_ worried about rejection.

‘You said you’d be back.’

‘I did, didn’t I?’ He stepped across the floor without a sound, watching them all the while. ‘You seemed to be doing pretty well on your own.’

‘If we wanted to be on our own, we’d be unlikely to choose _your_ bed, wouldn’t we?’ Diana grinned at him and started moving again.

‘Hm, you’ve got me there.’ Bruce was back on the bed, his hand reaching out and covering Clark’s on Diana’s hip. He tipped his forehead against her shoulder and kissed her upper arm. ‘Tell me, Diana. What do you want?’

She turned her torso and touched Bruce’s face. He gazed up at her, his face turned toward her like he was waiting to be blessed. He almost smiled. (If Bruce looked at anyone else like that, Clark wasn’t sure he would be able to take it. But with Diana – with Diana it was right. With Diana it was good.)

‘I’d like to come,’ she said, ‘and I’d like it to be a team effort.’

‘Mmm, I do love teamwork.’ He grinned at her and accepted her open-mouthed kisses. ‘Roll over.’

‘ _Bossy_ ,’ she teased again, evidently delighted. She leaned down to kiss Clark again, looping her arm around his neck and digging her heel against his knee, and rolled them over.

Clark kissed her before he sat up. Diana’s hair was spread across the bed like rays of a dark sun. She grinned. Bruce kissed behind Clark’s ear.

‘Where did I...’ Bruce dipped off the bed before he returned, squirting a dab of lube onto two fingers. ‘There we are.’

Bruce lay on his stomach, leaning his face against Diana’s cheek as he rubbed slicked fingers over her clit. And Bruce _talked_. Diana watched Clark all the while, her hands – digging into the sheets, running over her body, pushing down on Bruce’s fingers, reaching out for Clark’s hand, stroking Bruce’s hair.

 _You’re beautiful like this. You’re beautiful in every way, of course, but there’s something special about this – and you’re so fucking wet, for me, for Clark, for_ us _. You’re so good to us, let us be good to you, let us make you come._ (She was so close, Clark could smell it – sex and sweat and arousal, almost painful in its intensity.) _Come on, come on, fall and we’ll catch you._

She seemed surprised when she came, a cut-off whimper deep in her throat, her eyes and mouth wide. Bruce pulled back when she lifted herself up, her palms pressed into the bed and her forehead against Clark’s.

‘So _that’s_ what you meant by talking,’ she murmured against his mouth, breathless and uncertain.

Bruce was watching them, spread out like a lounging patrician.

Maybe it was Bruce watching them, or maybe it was Diana’s arm slung across his shoulders, her breasts pressed against his chest and her breath misting between them, or maybe it was everything that had happened that night, but Clark came again, sudden and spent and utterly fulfilled.

Diana held him through the shudders and kissed him before she fell back down. He kissed her – her face, her shoulder, her breasts, her stomach – before he pulled out and collapsed next to her. She found his hand and kissed his knuckles. She purred.

‘Princess, scoot up.’

Diana moved up the bed. Clark followed, because their hands were still linked and he was too boneless and spent to make his _own_ decisions.

And Bruce, on his knees between her legs: his hands running down the inside of her thighs; short nails barely scraping along her skin; a palm pressed against her dark curls and a thumb rubbing confidently over her clit; two fingers curled inside her. Diana sighed, content, and squeezed Clark’s hand.

‘You _did_ say half-a-dozen,’ she murmured.

‘And our Clark has as usual made a mess of things.’

Bruce studied the mess on his fingers, remnants of two orgasms. He wiped them on Diana’s thigh, then, as if he regretted the choice, he leaned in to lick her clean. Clark was in no state to get hard again, not now, but if anything could get him going again, Bruce lapping his cum off Diana’s skin would be it. (And, more important than that, Bruce’s words: _our Clark_.)

‘Don’t be mean to him.’ She nudged her knee, her thigh pushing against Bruce’s face for just a second before she let her leg fall again. ‘You can be so mean to him, sometimes. It’s not nice. Not when you love him as much as you do.’

Clark watched Bruce kiss and hum against Diana’s skin, fingers lazily fucking into her. His eyes, stripped of their usual boundaries, found Clark’s face.

‘Yes.’ He agreed.

Agreed, easily, to the full brunt of Diana’s wordx. That he could be mean. That he sometimes wasn’t nice. That he loved Clark.

‘Can I kiss you?’

Amazing, really, that after everything they had done tonight _that_ was something that could embarrass Clark, but the fear of rejection burned in his throat.

Bruce beckoned. His hand, fingers wet, touched Clark’s jaw, chin, cheek, as they kissed. Both of them were now on their knees, cradled over Diana’s body. He was still touching her, moving over her clit in a pattern that Clark seemed unable to figure out. Her fingers squeezed Clark’s and her mewls were short and breathless.

‘Do you want to help out?’

Bruce held his slick fingers to Clark’s lips, offering them like a benediction. (Eyes closed and Bruce’s fingers in his mouth, he could all at once understand what all this must look like. Diana whimpering under his touch; Clark boneless and limp for him. Bruce feeding him his own cum, and Clark lapping it up. How could a mortal man hold such power?) Clark pulled back and shook his head.

‘Not right now. ’m spent.’

He didn’t want to lie down again, so he kissed Diana. She arched into his touch, hands in his hair and pulling him close.

‘You taste of me,’ she said, pleased and soft. ‘And of you.’

Clark could hear the infectious burr of Bruce’s laugh. He giggled against Diana’s mouth and her laugh was bright and beautiful. He kissed her neck, her collarbone, her breasts. Bruce was kissing her, too, the jut of her hips, the flat of her stomach, the softness of her thighs.

He wondered briefly if Bruce wanted to fuck her. The images flashed in his mind, vivid and violently appealing. Bruce, fucking Diana with Clark’s cum. Diana, smiling in delight, both their ejaculate dripping between her thighs. Clark – well. Good things come in threes. (The thing that was equally exciting and terrifying: Clark had no reason to believe this _wouldn’t_ ever happen.)

But no, Bruce wasn’t going to fuck her. His cock half-hard against his thigh, he leaned down and ran his tongue over her cunt. The effect was immediate. Diana squeezed Clark’s hand, again, and adjusted the pillow under her head so she could see Bruce better. Clark was torn between kissing Diana and watching with her. Bruce – hands splaying her thighs, mouth working her open, eyes glimmering at them – won.

Sometimes, when the _Daily Planet_ editorial quipped about some business deal of Bruce’s that Perry didn’t agree with, there would be references to Bruce’s silver tongue. This was most definitely not what they meant, but it was no less apt.

He worked leisurely, teasingly, absolutely. His fingertips moved over her skin, his nose buried in her curls. He laughed when Diana reached down and grabbed his hair, pushing him closer. He worked his jaw and kissed and lapped and sucked and and – Diana whimpered and whined and grabbed Clark’s face as if his eyes could ground her, as if he could do anything but adore her as her pleasure rippled through her. Bruce continued, firmer and deeper, wringing helpless sounds of delight from her, coaxing her to an orgasm that shuddered the entire bed. Clark could almost feel it on her breath as she kept murmuring words he couldn’t understand, ancient and beautiful.

‘Enough, enough.’

She pulled at Bruce’s hair and he moved up the bed on hands and knees, kissing his way up her body before falling onto his back next to her. Next to Clark. Maybe Bruce reached out. Maybe it was Clark. They lay on the bed, sprawling arms and legs, a messy and exquisite embrace. 

Really, it wasn’t surprising that Bruce was the first to move. It was surprising how long he seemed to be content to stay there.

‘I’ll get up and start the shower.’ He made a half-hearted movement against the arms spread over his chest. ‘Water?’

‘Please.’

Bruce shimmied down the bed, maneuvering himself under Clark’s hands and gently lifting the foot he had hooked around his ankle. He padded naked from the room, his bare feet a whisper against the cold floor.

‘How are you, Clark?’ Diana looked at him, her eyes like a newly-pet cat’s.

‘I’m well.’ _Well_ was an understatement, probably. He felt like he had spent a week in the core of the sun. He caught her hand and kissed her wrist. ‘How are you?’

‘Satisfied.’ She touched his lips with a thumb, smiled, and rolled off the bed. ‘I’ll be in the bathroom.’ 

Clark lay on Bruce’s bed and waited. He could hear the hiss of the water and, on the other side of the house, the heater coming to life. In the kitchen, he heard the creak of cabinets being opened and glasses pulled from the shelf. He heard the clink of crystal on crystal and the rustle of plastic bottles pressed against each other. Bruce returned with the water squeezed under his arm, a bottle of – very expensive, judging by the year printed on the label – champagne in one hand and three flutes of champagne in the other. He placed the champagne and glasses on the bedside table before getting the water bottle from under his arm. He offered one to Clark, who shook his head.

‘And how are you, mister Kent?’

‘I would think we’re past _mister_ , don’t you?’

Bruce shrugged and made a sound, presumably in agreement.

Clark watched Bruce open the champagne through half-closed eyes, releasing the cork without a sound. All the while, Bruce was watching him. He didn’t even look when he poured the wine, the bubbles spilling up and over the rim, covering the table’s glass surface in a thin layer of champagne. He shook his head slightly and offered one of the flutes. Clark accepted it and licked the champagne off the base before he half-sat and took a real sip. The wine was like nougat and red apples, the bubbles tickling his nose. Bruce watched him, his eyes soft.

‘I know you probably don’t want to, but would you stay tonight?’ Bruce asked the question while staring at his wine, wiping down the wine-sodden table with a tissue.

‘What do you mean I wouldn’t want to? _You’re_ the one who hasn’t wanted me to.’ 

‘That’s not true.’ Bruce sat on the bed, and looked away for several seconds before he finally looked at Clark. He looked _sheepish_ , which was an expression Clark had never expected to see on Bruce Wayne’s face. ‘I never meant to give you that impression. You were always welcome to stay.’

‘You were always going places. It felt pretty clear that you wanted me gone. That – that it was fine for Diana to stay the night but not me.’

‘Clark, you know that–’ He touched the back of his hand, fingertips on knuckles, their fingers interlacing, ‘you _know_ , right?’

Clark cocked his head and watched him, the small smile that was both embarrassed and honest, the raised eyebrows that asked for an answer. Maybe he could say the words. He raised Bruce’s hand to his lips, planting a kiss on his thumb.

‘Yeah, I know.’ Clark moved closer and leaned his forehead against Bruce’s. ‘And you know too, right?’

Maybe he couldn’t say the words.

Bruce exhaled. The air between them was warm and heady with the smell of champagne and carbon dioxide.

‘Yeah, I know. Thank you for staying tonight.’ He paused. ‘And stay whenever you want.’

‘Be careful what you wish for.’

Clark kissed him then, nibbling along his lower lip. He could feel Bruce’s smile. The kisses were languid, lazy, loving.

‘Not that I’m not enjoying this’ – Bruce murmured into the kisses – ‘but we have a goddess in my shower and there’s a champagne flute with her name on it.’

Clark let Bruce hoist him onto his feet and they made their way to the bathroom. Diana smiled at them when Clark opened the fogged-up door of the shower, her hair lathered and her eye make-up smudging down her cheeks. The water was hot and Diana’s fingers pulling him under the showerhead were just as reassuringly burning. Bruce joined them after a moment, a wipe between two fingers.

‘Diana.’

He caught her chin and pulled her out from under the jets, cleaning her face. Clark watched him daub at her streaked make-up, carefully running the make-up remover wipe over her eyes. The first time Clark had noticed the _Wayne Cosmetics_ wipes on one of the workbenches in the cave, he had been confused because he recognised the same jar from Lois’ vanity. He remembered her telling him, back when they were still together, that there was a lot that could be said about Bruce Wayne, but he sure knew his skincare. He couldn’t quite gel that memory with Bruce himself until the one night he met Bruce in the cave after a long patrol. Clark could feel the sun rise beyond the walls of the cave as he watched Bruce distractedly rub off the grease around his eyes. It fell into place then. Of course Bruce had developed his _own_ make-up remover, and _of course_ he marketed it for millions.

Diana beamed at him when he pulled away and leaned in for a kiss.

‘I was starting to miss you two,’ she said as Clark moved and started combing his fingers through her hair. ‘Did you have a nice chat?’

Bruce kissed her jaw and neck. He looked different like this, water dripping from his eyebrows and his hair slicked back. Under the running water, his edges were buffed down.

‘There’s a glass for you on the counter if you want some champagne when you’re done.’

‘That’s nice.’

Clark worked the conditioner through her hair as she massaged Bruce’s shampoo into a rich lather. The shower should feel crowded, but they all seemed to know how the others would move, keeping out of the way when needed, leaning into touches when warranted. Clark’s hair smelled of Bruce and even when he was out of the shower, he could feel the ghost of Diana’s fingers down his back.

Bruce left pools of water on the floor when he trekked across the bathroom floor to gather three fresh towels from a closet. Clark lingered at the sight of them in the foggy mirror: three heads of dark hair, two unscarred bodies, one body with enough scars for all of them. As Clark towelled the water from his hair, Bruce sidled behind him and worked the moisturiser that smelled like _money_ into his skin, working from his shoulders and down and down. Clark knew that Bruce knew that he didn’t need to moisturise, but he liked that he did it anyway. Bruce’s hands on him felt like home.

‘I have a favour to ask of you.’ Bruce murmured against his neck, his hands on either side of his ribcage. It was almost an embrace. ‘Will you start changing the sheets while I finish up here?’

‘Trying to fob off the boring tasks to me?’ Clark craned his neck so he could see Bruce better in the mirror. Bruce wrapped an arm around his chest and nibbled at his skin before responding.

‘I have nine steps of skincare to work through. You’re only with me for my looks, after all.’

‘Pssh. You’re an idiot.’ Clark wriggled out of his grip and kissed him on the mouth, his chin caught between finger and thumb. The feeling of Bruce’s smile against his lips was better than any champagne.

Clark allowed himself to half-listen to Diana and Bruce as he stripped the bed. Bruce was talking about the difference between _toner_ and _essence_ and he could hear Diana scoff. He wondered if it was Alfred or Bruce who hated fitted sheets while he tried to figure out which sheet was the top sheet and which was the flat sheet. Come to think of it, he wasn’t even sure those were even the right terms. He heard champagne being poured and Diana gently teasing Bruce. He heard Bruce defend himself in a catty voice that was all play. He punched the pillows into the pillowcases. He was pretty sure Bruce would frown at his attempts of making the bed nicely.

He was proven half-right when Bruce and Diana exited the bathroom and Bruce cocked his head at the bed before completely redoing the top sheet, tucking it into military corners and smoothing his hand over the surface. Still:

‘Thank you,’ he said and kissed Clark’s ear.

Bruce seemed to have decided that it wasn’t time to sleep yet. (After all, they hadn’t finished the wine yet.) He disappeared to the kitchen and returned with a platter of nuts and olives. They grazed as they drifted from topic to topic. Bruce kept touching Clark, accidental brushes of fingers and light touches on his arm. When Diana told them a story about her favourite horse growing up, Bruce moved to sit behind Clark and pulled him against him with an arm around his shoulders. Now and then, Bruce would grab a few almonds and offer them to Clark. For each almond he was fed, Clark kissed Bruce’s fingertips. It was strange how _not_ strange this felt, Bruce being openly affectionate with the fingers combing through his hair and the occasional kisses on the top of Clark’s ear. He knew that this wouldn’t be every night. But knowing that Bruce would even consider this was a boon. He knew he was loved.

Diana watched them and smiled.


End file.
